We Are Dismayed

There is one thing about writing; sometimes it is easy, and sometimes it is hard. Sometimes an email 10 paragraphs long is a 10 minute operation, and sometimes a few lines can take an hour. Sometimes it isn't what you need to say, but how you need to say it.

Words have meanings, and words have moods. Sometimes the use of one word will convey the right meaning, but the wrong mood. The meaningless email on procedure; easy. The simply stated email on how you feel about an recent event; hard.

Part of it is using the right word to convey the right feeling; sometimes it's avoiding the word you don't want to use. How many times have we written pages of words to avoid using one?

Sorry.

Yep; that's the one.

We need to let someone know we have erred; but we can't admit to the error.

We are dismayed at the consequences, that possibly may have, at some point, might have been caused by an unintended action, however direct or indirect, on our part, and want you to know that we are aware of the consequences, whatever little a part we may have played in the events leading to these consequences.

Maybe because sorry conveys meaning we don't want to use; like fault.

Want to start a long conversation with your kids? Find a recent event, drag them all together in to one room and ask who's fault the incident was. Guarantee the first words out of the culprits mouth will be "so & so made me do it"; shorthand for "we are dismayed...yada, yada, yada.

And then so & so will have his version of events which accounts for all of the blame, none of which happens to land on his shoulders. And will usually drag yet a third party into the fray.

Just for this entertainment value, I would usually buy some dime store bric-a-brac at a yard sale for a nickel, place it prominently in the living room, with the explanation that this was an heirloom of great value, handed down many generations; irreplaceable.

Within a week I would sweeping the shards up from the floor. Knowing what was coming the boys would make themselves scarce; hiding out somewhere. Waiting on the call they knew was coming.

And working on alibis.

The inevitable meeting would take place; the inevitable words spoken: Who's Fault?

The following conversations would take many words; some rather erudite, and probably cribbed from the Complete Works of Shakespeare  I kept on the bookshelf; others rather simple. But even the simplest speaker seemed able to go on and on without mentioning one simple word:

Sorry.

See how easy it is? I have managed to say Sorry multiple times in the last few minutes.

But then, I don't have anything to be sorry about.