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There’s a very funny joke from an old Grapevine that goes like this:
The best time to eat crow is when it is still warm.
I find that quite hilarious, and very true. I would, however, say that “still warm” doesn’t mean you can’t spend a few minutes contemplating the best way to say sorry about something. And you could probably call your sponsor and pray a little bit to make sure you are going to apologize in the right way, at the right time, and the crow would still be at least room temperature by the time you were ready to make amends.
Let me tell you the way that played out recently in my life. My wife is someone who is constantly telling me to be careful because of wild new financial scams that are happening in the world. So she’s told me about checking the gas station pumps to make sure there isn’t something over the credit card slot that will steal my info… she’s told me to guard my wallet at airports because people can scan your wallet if it’s thin and steal your credit card info… And she recently told me that there’s been an increase in chiefs stealing checks out of the mail, washing them and then writing them out to themselves to steal your money.
When she told me that last one a few weeks ago, I rolled my eyes and said, “Ah, sure, I’ll be careful about that. And also, you said I should maybe start wearing a metal helmet around my ass to protect my wallet from people at the airport, too, right?” She didn’t laugh.
Now, I am basing that sarcasm on being 45 years old and never having my identity stolen. I’ve never had any checks washed or credit cards scanned by the Spirit Airlines departures area. I actually can’t think of anybody I know who’s had any of that happen, either. So I have always chalked it up to the "a guy on Facebook said…” genre of fear-mongering and conspiracy.
And as far as sobriety goes, I have really worked hard in recovery to not live in the wreckage of the future. Yes, I could get cancer. Yes, there could be a terrorist attack. Yes, my identity could get stolen. Yes, climate change could cause the Atlantic Ocean to wash my whole house away. That stuff all used to make me scared, and make me feel hopeless, and make me want to numb the pain with drugs and alcohol. That kind of fear is real, and I feel some it on a regular basis, and I push myself hard to live where my feet currently are, not where they were, or where they will be.
But… that’s all rationalizing away what is a pretty clear case of contempt prior to investigation. I don’t need to react to my wife the way that I did. Sure, maybe I don’t need to panic every time some dude who just came over from MySpace to post on Facebook that hackers are shining sonogram machines into the sides of houses and somehow stealing Social Security Numbers from the street. (Quick note: I made that up. Nobody is doing that as far as I know, and I hope I didn’t just introduce an insane conspiracy theory into the world.)
But maybe I don’t need to be dismissive and a jerk when someone mentions that kind of thing to me, right?
OK, so let me get to the reason I am telling you this story. This week, I saw on my online bank statement that I had been charged $32 for an overdraft because I had sent someone a check for $5,000. The problem is, I hadn’t sent anybody a check for $5,000. When I looked at my account, I found three checks from six weeks ago that I mailed on the same day, in the same blue mailbox, and none of them had been cashed.
When I called the bank, they pulled up a visual of the check and said, “This looks like a clear case of check washing. Someone must have stolen the mail, cleaned the checks and rewritten them.”
I got it all straightened out and wiped from my account. My wife would never even know it happened, and I would never have to eat s**t. But I consider moments like that to be valuable humility reminders, and some would even say those are times when your higher power steps in to right-size you. So I went downstairs and told my wife that we’d had some checks washed but that everything was fine.
The look on her face… I’m not sure what the perfect word would be to describe it. Let’s just say she was the happiest check-washing victim in the history of humanity. She LOVED this moment and literally said, “See, I told you so. You were so dismissive of me and you made fun of me…”
I started to argue with her that for every 100 of these supposed scams, very few are real and are worth freaking out about. She argued back, playfully, and I eventually thought of that Grapevine joke—that the best time to eat crow is when it is still fresh. So I said to her, “You know what, you’re right. I definitely don’t need to wave you off when you raise a concern. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”
I got a little aggravated for a moment because she still seemed so happy to be dunking on me. But I didn’t say anything, and I thought, hey, if I am going to stand under the rim, I am going to get dunked on. So my belly is full right now with piping-hot crow, and there is something incredibly funny and deserved about it.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
A woman was driving home from a conference when she saw an old acquaintance, obviously down on her luck, thumbing for a ride. So the woman stopped the car, and the hitchhiker got in, smelling of gin.
After they’d been riding a mile or so, the rummy noticed a brown bag on the front seat. “What’s in the bag?” she asked.
“It’s a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband,” the driver replied.
The drinker fell silent for a minute and then said, “Good trade.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, February 2002, Frank C. from Omaha, Nebraska)
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