More Letters

Dear woman at the park who was yelling at her son,

I'm not sure you knew this, but every person in the whole playground could hear every word of what you said to poor Oliver. Earlier, he had come traipsing cheerfully through the sand area where we were playing, and I thought "what a friendly fellow." Then, when your son sat down and was taking off his sandals, my son Johnny, with a glint in his eye, dumped a pail of sand right onto Oliver's shoe. Oliver just smiled. Later on, when we heard you yelling at him, it was hard not to stare. He had stepped in that area near the playground that is perpetually muddy even though you were calling to him "don't step in the mud!" And then, as you began yelling at him about that, he bounced onto the picnic blanket with those shoes still on. That seemed to really send you over the top. It was not a good moment. Not for you, and not for Oliver, although I'm not sure he really knew what was going on. He just knew you were not happy with him. It wasn't a good moment for the other moms and dads at the park that day either. We didn't want to watch and hear and think "what's wrong with her!" but we did that. Ok, I can't speak for them, but I know I did that.

But I have to thank you. I hope you will lighten up a bit on Oliver, but even if you don't, I will try to remember how distinctly I heard myself in your angry voice, your wrong expectations, your forgetting why you were at the park to begin with, your unwillingness to let go of little things you could be in control of in order to make the bigger picture--the day at the park--a really happy one. It was all me. I was staring at you but I was also seeing me.

I turned to my friend and I said, "I would never yell at my kids like that. No, not ever." And she knew what I meant.

I hope your day got better. I hope Oliver's did, too.
Still thinking about it,
Ann


Dear property management folks,

I called you to see if someone there could meet me at the rental property to show me the place. You said that no, I could come to your office (which is nowhere near the rental property or my own home), show a photo ID, pick up a key, and then go look at it at on my own time, whenever I liked. Perhaps you don't think I realize that this is not for my convenience at all. Just for your convenience. Well, I do realize that.

Especially when I was ready to use the key you gave me and found that it would not open the front door. Oh, it would open one of the locks, but not both. It's something you could have mentioned if you couldn't spare a person to go with me. You might have mentioned that I'd have to search around in the creepy dimness behind the house until I found the back door. You could have told me that even when I found that door, the key you gave me would still be extremely difficult to use.

What you did tell me, that the place was "cute," was not only insufficient information, but also grossly inaccurate. Further inaccurate information--that the place had a dishwasher. It didn't. If I had known there was no dishwasher, guess what? I would have saved myself all the trouble about the key by not calling you in the first place.

And finally, really? Are you really going to rent the place out without replacing that window in one of the bedrooms that has a large hole in it? Good luck with that.

You are unaccountably lucky I was good enough to return the key so promptly. I was tempted to call you and say "Oh, you can come to my home and pick it up on your own time, whenever you like." You know, I'm not sure why I didn't do that.

You won't hear from me again,
Ann