A snowstorm has now moved out of the midwest but what it dumped on the Great Plains is nothing compared to the amount of scorn being heaped on those who insisted an ancient calendar foretold the end of the world – yesterday.
I have yet to hear someone elegantly walk it back after declaring the end is nigh and being proven wrong. Though I do feel some sympathy because we all make mistakes. And in a cynical world there is something to admire in a person who has sufficient faith to accept a fantastic story without much proof.
Storytellers, at least, should not be so critical of the gullible. That’s your audience, my friends.
‘Twas the night of the solstice they gave him the word
that the Mayan Apocalypse hadn’t occurred.
Poor Santa. A workhorse, not really a thinker
had bought the whole fantasy. Hook, line and sinker.
He’d fired the elves. The reindeer, he ate.
He divorced Mrs. Claus. He went out on a date.
And did many bad things. With no need to pretend,
he had ceased to be decent. He welcomed the end.
For the world was too big. It was too far around.
There were too many people, and way too much ground
for one man and a sleigh to fly past in one night.
So catastrophe sounded, to Santa, just right.
But of course all that changed when it didn’t pan out.
And with three days remaining, he harbored some doubt
He could put things back right and deliver the goods.
And re-hire those elves and get out of the woods
with the people around him he’d hurt to the core.
He would probably purchase some toys at the store
to replace all the ones that the elves couldn’t make
in a weekend of work. And yes, some might be fake
But that still was less awkward than what he’d just done.
He had dined on his reindeer, gone out chasing fun
just to find that it wasn’t as great as they said.
He was old, fat and bald. A disgrace dressed in red.
Who’d embraced armageddon. He’d acted acted the dope
He’d imbibed all of Blitzen. He only could hope.
That redemption is something a man can achieve.
And such things may come true if you truly believe.
When have you been obviously, spectacularly wrong?
Trail Baboon 
Greetings! I’m actually first today! Just couldn’t sleep and I had to send an email to my family boasting of my “Cookie Grinch” blog. It’s actually published in the Daily Planet today as well — see it here: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/blog/anonymous/cookie-grinch
I honestly don’t remember a time when I was horribly wrong. Although there was a college paper that the professor held up as an example of definitely not getting it right and generally BSing my way through the paper. Maybe I’ll think of something later.
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Oh, and GREAT poem, Dale. Wonderful way to start the day!
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Morning all! Excellent poem, Dale… although the thought of the reindeer becoming steak is a little grisly.
I deal with some big budgets and every now and then, despite spreadsheets and calculators, I end up with bad numbers. Luckily nothing so spectacular that it has endangered my livelihood and nothing interesting enough to go into here.
On the emotional side, when I started dating my wasband I knew that we were very different creatures at the core. I was young and in love (read ‘stupid’) and I told myself that our differences would complement each other. While this may be the case for some couples, it certainly wasn’t for us. That was the hardest part of the breakup – feeling deep down that I kinda knew all along!
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Great poem, Dale. I’ll need a cup of coffee before I tackle this one. I’ve been wrong so often it looks like right to me.
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
Just like Sherilee–I knew I should not marry him and I did it anyway. BIG SIGH. So that miscalculation became a wasband. It was the pain it caused my son that I really regret. These kinds of mistakes often hurt the most vulnerable.
I learned from it and hit gold on the second, older and wiser opportunity to marry My Dear Lou who many of you know.
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And Lou’s mighty lucky too, Jacque.
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Thank you very much kind sir.
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Oh man, where do I start? There are too many booboos and whoopsies to pick from to say which was worst. It might have been my decision to take a job doing public relations for the health sciences at the U of Mn. I had just left my job editing an outdoors magazine, a job I passionately loved and which I did well in spite of daunting difficulties. Losing that job was more like a terrible divorce than a job change, and I was an emotional wreck.
From a distance, the PR job sounded like it would be a safe place to work reasonable hours and lick my wounds for a few years. I’d been working 60- to 80-hours at the magazine.
What I failed to consider was the personality of my boss. She could not have been more wrong for ME than any other boss on earth. My relations with her got nastier day by day until they were so bad I shook with fear when talking to her. I wasn’t alone. Someone in the PR office at the U said, “There are 31 employees here in PR. Thirty of us get along beautifully and one of us fights the others like a mad weasel.” Memories of that lady still inspires icy terror in me. We lasted seven torturous months. She fired me just before Christmas, and that was one of the lowest points of my life.
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I’m like VS – I’ll never know what possessed me to get married the first time, and I too knew somewhere in me that it wouldn’t work. I can be philosophical about it now and see that, without that, I would be in some different place than here, and I like here quite a lot. But it did make me feel SO STUPID!
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🙂
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It would have to be 1994 when I accepted a significant demotion to transfer to the DNR. I assumed (you know, assumed) that I’d be able to advance quickly in the DNR and wouldn’t stay in the same job classification for 18 years. Wrong. So wrong. I don’t regret my time working for the DNR, though. I had very good and very bad experiences there. I’m glad I left when things were going well. I missed out on years of higher salary though, and I might have been able to retire sooner if I hadn’t assumed that I’d get in on ground level and advance quickly.
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Morning all–
I know I’ve heard myself say ‘Well, *that* didn’t work’ a number of times.
Probably the worst was sticking my leg in the silage auger when just trying to clean mud off my boot. Bad idea in the first place and terrible execution in the second. Kids, don’t try this at home!
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how old were you?
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Can you imagine a table saw with out a guard in place in high wood shop? How do you stop the blade with your thumb…. and didn’t sleep well the night before. The blade did stop before completely severing it. I didn’t ever do that again though. And no, I wasn’t doing it on purpose, judgement about grabbing the wood before the blade stopped was a poor call. These things happen for a reason, to teach us what to do and not to do? Oh well…
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Did a similar thing at the college scene shop – wasn’t actually trying to stop the blade, just pushing through a piece of wood I was ripping down. Almost split my thumb in the process (thankfully, I only removed a bunch of callous on the finger pad – phew). After that I was very meticulous about always using a piece of scrap wood to push the wood I was sawing.
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I have avoid accidents with power saws because I find them kind of scary and I try hard to be careful. I am kind of careless with some other tools. You would think I could avoid hitting myself with a hammer. Whacking yourself with a hammer isn’t a big deal, but you sure wish you had aimed better right after you make that mistake.
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Mistakes? Yah – more than I care to count. Some of my core creative solutions for sets came from mistakes (a color not mixing right or not having enough of a custom color I had mixed, cutting lumber to the wrong size, a fabric looking drastically wrong or not hanging the way I wanted it to once it was on the set…I have been amazed with what I can mask with a light wash of paint or a bit of sheer fabric). Sent an email to the wrong group list at work once which meant it was going to senior VPs across the company instead of our little group…at least that one didn’t have any “bad” information in it or icky news.
I sometimes feel like I chose especially poorly when we bought our house. I fell in love with the rooflines and didn’t think about how they might be a recipe for ice dam disasters. I fell in love with the kitchen nook but didn’t think about how that cozy nook came at the expense of actual storage and counter space (I have two drawers – two – in the kitchen and a tiny center island for workable counter space). I fell in love with the fireplace and didn’t think about the difficulties of actually putting furniture in the room…and it doesn’t have a true second bathroom like Husband wanted (which is still an occasional sore point). But – with all that – we have really good neighbors and in a sweet spot for getting Daughter into a good elementary school…plus it is around the corner from a fabulous library (one of the house’s major selling points). Maybe on balance it isn’t all bad, but some days – like today when I was fighting an aluminum window – it feels like a disaster.
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And right there in the first sentence – another glaring mistake. “Core creative” should be “most creative.” Reminds me of all the times I found typos and errors in numbering in user documents or web sites after they were out and in the client’s hands where I couldn’t fix them…
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i had that once or twice
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Anna – the library was a huge selling point for me as well when I bought my house. Then, just a few months after I moved, they closed the library for the big remodel. Felt like bait and switch at the time, but I am a regular now. Just took a plate of cookies to the librarians this morning!
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I am a scientist in my heart if not my head, so the hoopla about 12-21-2012 Mayan Calendar ending and our time here as well, made no sense to me. It made about as much sense as when our calendar ends every year on the 12-31. I don’t party much or take those unnecessary risks, so there was not end of the world celebration at my house. We have only the usual holiday decorations and accoutrements. May all your days be merry and bright… etc Don’t burn too many bridges, one might save your life some day.
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i was real wrong thinking dale had written his best poem, hats off rhyme man. i make mistakes so often it is when i think i made a mistake and i was mistaken that is the exception
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Unlike vs, Jacque, and BiR who all knew they were making a mistake when they married their first husbands, I was completely clueless prior to the wedding. Within a few hours of it, however, I had my doubts. Seven weeks later, when I arrived in the States and met his family, those doubts escalated alarmingly. By the time wasband and I had driven from NY to Wyoming, only my innate stubbornness prevented me from packing my bags and heading back home. Despite the rocky start, by the time we divorced almost nine years later, I’d say that, by and large, it was an experience I don’t regret.
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Good afternoon. Hiring is a place where you can easily go bad. I haven’t been in a position to do much hiring, but I did play a big role in picking a couple of part time people that didn’t end up being right for the job. I guess you should try to be as careful as possible when hiring. I wasn’t. They seemed like they would be good. Then I had to work with them. They had no understanding of what was needed and didn’t seem to know that. I had to do work that they should have been doing and finally they left. Since I was covering the work they should have done, at least one person thought I was being unfair when I said the people I helped hire were not getting the job done. They pretended they were doing the job right and didn’t acknowledge that I was doing what they should have been doing.
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OT I’ve just finished a fascinating book about all the ways US presidents have been helped by ex-presidents. This is history through a lens I didn’t know existed. Read about it on the internet: The Presidents Club. I’d give or loan my copy to anyone interested, although I’d rather not mail it (it’s a heavy sucker).
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I’d be interested in reading it, Steve, but I have two books ahead of it in my reading queue. Next year sometime.
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ill take it after pj
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I often miscalculate how much I can do in a day. I had grand plans for lots of things for today, but it has taken me all day to just clear out the clutter, filth, and accumulated junkmail and extraneous paper in the house, and now it is time for bell rehearsal. I haven’t even dusted or vacuumed!
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send dale a video of the bell group for us renee. is christams whiskey ok for gout
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such a sad song…
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Ha! Love it. I suppose that, believing in his own existence, Santa might as well believe in other such excentric notions. I’ve recently begun reading Clyde in Mankato’s blog after he began reading mine, and he told me about yours! Glad to be here.
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