I have written about how our words can sometimes lead us into trouble. The way we say them, how people hear them and our body language.

But sometimes, it isn’t our words that get us into situations. Sometimes it is what we hear, or what we see or how we perceive things. It is one of these situations I want to share with you.

We have some friends who live in Ireland. These friends of ours travel extensively, even coming to U.S.A. on occasion. Even though they speak English, sometimes, their words mean different things than ours do. Even though it might be the same word. But this is not a tale about words.

Our friend Paul, was recently in Miami Florida waiting on his departure for a cruise. He came a few days early so as to have a breather and see some sights.

One afternoon, it was raining very hard. He said it was chucking it down so heavy that visibility was cut down severely.

Since he couldn’t really go anywhere while this was going on, he stayed in his room.

He started watching out his window and noticed a group of people across the street, standing under a canopy. They were standing under there to keep out of all that water. So as Paul was watching them, he thought it would be amusing to turn his room light on and wave to these people.

So that is what he did. He was waving away, but none of them would wave back at him!

He said to me on the phone a couple of days later, “I was standing there waving and waving, but they just stood there and wouldn’t wave back. I thought, those cheeky so and so’s, why won’t they wave at me?” He went on to say, “Ah, the bloody bums, forget “em.”

So he started watching TV and noticed after a while that the rain was letting up. He then went to his window to see if it had stopped enough to go out and see some sights.

That is when he noticed that those people were still standing there. He thought, “Why are they still standing there? Are they so bloody stupid they don”t know it has quit raining? What are they waiting on? Are they going to stand there all day?”

Then he blinked. And blinked again. Pressed his face right up to the window to get as good a look as he could. That is when he realized who he had been looking at.

It was a store front window full of mannequin’s! He felt so sheepish as you can imagine.

By the time he told me about it, he was seeing the funny side of things. Knowing him as I do, I know he saw the humor in it as soon as he realized what it was he was really seeing. I can see him standing there, laughing and laughing into that window pane. I just hope no one saw him waving like a mad man at no one, then later standing there laughing into a pane of glass!

He said to me, “I promise you, it wasn’t the drink! I had not had one drop, not even a beer! I was going to blame it on my new glasses, but now, I think I will blame it on the reduced visibility from all that rain!”

Sounds as good an excuse to me as any.

So, sometimes, it isn’t our speech or our enunciation that gets us into situations, but what we see. Or think we see. Just goes to show, you really can’t jump to conclusions or believe everything you see.

Have a wonderful cruise Paul. Can’t wait to hear what all you got up to on the ship. Don’t mistake your room safe for the micro “wave”.