Chicken or Beef?

I had a disagreement with a good friend tonight. Well, maybe disagreement is the wrong word for it. He said something that kinda stung me. He didn't mean for it to affect me the way it did, and I knew he wasn't being the least bit malicious. Yet, it hurt. It was silly that it did. I knew I was being unreasonable. (Do I at least get points for recognizing that I was being crazy? I feel as though I should.) Anyway, in my frustration, I decided to go for a ride because it was a beautiful night and I thought it would calm me down.

I drove to one of my favorite thinking places. It's this cute little pond with these cute little ducks located right in the middle of town. It must be one of the best kept secrets here because I go there frequently and it is rare that there is anyone else around. It's pretty fantastic that way. So I sat there on a rock on the shore and I talked to the ducks. They seemed mildly interested at best. I always thought I was a reasonably good storyteller, but I guess the ducks had a different opinion. Next time I'll have to remember to take a couple slices of bread along to help hold their attention.

After getting nowhere with the ducks I began to wander back toward my car. I exchanged pleasantries with a father and son who were walking down the sidewalk and tried to hold the tears at bay. It was completely irrational, and I needed to find a way to feel better. So I drove past the house of another good friend whom I haven't talked to for quite some time. I told myself that if she was outside I would stop and talk, if not, I would head home and sleep my frustration away. As luck would have it, she was standing in her front yard. I think it is one of the tender mercies in this life that when I really needed her to be there, she was. We went into the house to catch up on all we had missed over the past several months and then, of course, I got around to telling her what was bothering me.

As I finished my tale of frustration and hurt feelings, she smiled knowingly and told me a story of her own. It was about people I didn't know who had had a blow-up of their own. A husband and wife had been going through a rough patch. One night while traveling, they had stopped to get something to eat. The wife was hungry and easily ordered a hamburger, then stood there and became increasingly impatient and upset as her husband kept changing his mind between the chicken sandwich or a hamburger of his own. By the time he decided what he wanted for dinner, the wife was so angry, she was ready to completely throw in the towel on their marriage. Essentially, she was ready to call it quits because her husband couldn't decide, chicken or beef?

Now, this is certainly an extreme example of the frustration I was feeling. I was nowhere near the thought of ending our friendship, but it provided me with a perspective that I will certainly think on for some time to come. How often do we let something as simple as chicken or beef become the determining factor of our relationships? Whether it is with our significant other or a close friend, we need to be aware that, sometimes, what we are getting upset about, is pretty trivial.