You just never know

The first time the umpire screeched, I sat there quietly. The next time he yellow “strike,” I turned to the parent next to me and frowned. The third time, we couldn’t help but giggle out loud. After that, the scream he made with each strike call was more obnoxious than funny.

It was loud, like a cat-getting-caught-in-an-electric-fence loud. It was distracting.

“That umpire was annoying,” I said to Jenny that night. She stared at me in disbelief.

“Mother,” she said disgustedly. “He was deaf.”

Well, I felt like an idiot, kind of like that sick feeling you get when you talk about someone to someone else without knowing the two are sisters. Sure, I could make an excuse and say I didn’t know, but that shouldn’t have mattered.

It was unkind.
It was uncaring.
It was rude.

It was unnecessary, like most unkind, uncaring, and rude things people say and do.

I judged him without knowing him.

We all judge people without knowing them. We look at how the raise their kids and say, “they should know better.” We look at how they dress and say, “Don’t they care?” We look at how heavy they are sand say, “they shouldn’t eat so much.”

We say it all without ever considering what may be going on in their lives.

Maybe that father who is cross at his child in the store hasn’t slept because he’s working two jobs to make ends meet. Maybe that woman dresses the way she does because all the extra money is going toward Christmas presents for her children. Maybe that weight gain is cause by cancer treatments or medication.

You just never know.

Things are rarely as they seem.

We would do better to accept what people give us as their best effort that day.