Dinner Story #1

(Read this post first.)

The staff retreat at school was today. They brought in somebody to lead this retreat who thought it was funny to bring up how much she didn't like cats. . . and then decided to push it right into "The only good cat is a dead cat" territory.

Oh no, she didn't!

Oh yes, she did.

And here I am all confused, because I thought the people most in touch with their spirituality loved nature (and Lord knows we sure mentioned it a lot in those prayer sheets today), and loved all God's creatures.

I was so angry, and so frustrated that I had to sit there listening to stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with improving my relationship with God and others, that it was all I could do to stuff down the tears and try to silence the voice that keeps asking, "Why am I here?"


Some people really know how to take the "treat" out of retreat.


Comments

ccr in MA said…
What is with people? I once had an eye doctor, as we discussed my eyes and contacts and how sometimes cat hair makes my eyes itch slightly, decide that this was the way to tell me that he wasn't fond of cats: well, he said, if he was around a cat soaked in gasoline and was holding a lit match, he wouldn't be careful what he did with it.

I don't go to him any more.
Kate P said…
Whaaaaaat? I'm sorry, but people who take CARE of other people should NOT be awful to animals. I mean, I don't like ferrets AT ALL, but I don't go around wishing they were dead. (They can stay in the wild far, far away from me, where they belong.)
Lindsay said…
Uhm. What? I'm... so confused. Just because you don't like an animals doesn't mean it's okay to say they should be killed. I'm not particularly enamored of dogs, but I don't want them dead. Yet, if you were to say that you really, really hated a particular person and thought that they'd be better off dead, that lady would've looked at you like you were heartless. I know animals and people aren't the same things AT ALL, but wishing death to anything animate is still a rather heavy statement.

I hope a cat scratches her and gives her tetanus. ;o)
Kate P said…
Welllll, Lindsay,that might reinforce her hatred of cats if one scratches her. Heck, maybe that's what started it all. Who knows? Maybe I'll just have to start praying for her conversion. To liking cats.
Dave E. said…
That cat statement is a pretty out of line thing to just blurt out to a group of people. It's certain to offend somebody, if not almost everybody. You know I'm more of a dog person, but it's not like I hate cats.

Speaking of not going to certain eye doctors anymore...I went to this one doctor for almost my entire life and never had a problem with him. Then about 2002 he was giving me a glaucoma test where he was pushing an instrument right on the eyeball. He chose that moment to tell me how much he hated Bush and didn't I feel the same? I think I managed a non-committal hmmm, but how is that for inappropriate? I was already a little freaked about him touching my eye in the first place. I got a new eye doctor after that.
nightfly said…
well, he said, if he was around a cat soaked in gasoline and was holding a lit match, he wouldn't be careful what he did with it.

One day in my boyhood, our family cat came home soaked in some petroleum product of sorts, and had to be taken to get cleaned up. I have always suspected that she didn't get doused accidentally, and only her sense of self-preservation (and newly-slippery fur) kept her from a horrible fate.

That eye doctor better stay in MA, out of my reach.
Rob said…
If cat hair gets too close to my eyes, I itch, too.

I'd have had to get a new eye doctor, also. To say that to a patient is truly idiotic and bad for business.

Dave,

Instrument to eyeball equals gun to head ... Yes, ma'am - No, ma'am - ThankYou, ma'am. :)
Kate P said…
Dave--are all the eye doctors haters now? Or just bad conversationalists? What's up with that?

'Fly--how awful! Poor kitty. What is wrong with people???

Rob--yeah, bad for business is what I'd say, too. My current eye doctor is not that pleasant of a guy, either, but I like the people who run the place and they've treated me well for years. They've just contracted out to the wrong guy after the previous guy retired (also cranky, but he was old and therefore more cantankerous than cranky).

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