Context Matters

Imagine you're walking down the street, minding your own business, just window shopping for nothing in particular and everything in general. You reach the corner, and when you glance up, you notice a business on the opposite corner, with a sign posted prominently out front that reads:

We Would Rather Do Business With

1,000 Al Qaeda Terrorists

Than With One Single American Soldier!

Reading it, your blood begins to boil. I mean, what decent, red-blooded, patriotic American WOULDN'T be upset by this? How DARE they?! If it wasn't for the United States military, that business might not exist, and they certainly wouldn't be able to put up a sign like that. Their “free speech” only exists because the military ensures it exists.

By the time the light changes, allowing you to cross the street, you're positively fuming. You decide you're going to march into the business and read everyone in there the riot act, from the owner right on down to the lowliest employee, and you're not going to hold back!!!

Reaching the front door, seeing red, pulling the door open, you take a deep breath as you're about to start yelling at the first employee you see. That's when you read the name of the business painted on the glass of the front door - Malloy's Funeral Home.

Suddenly chagrined and humbled, you turn around and walk out.

The moral? Context matters. ~ Hunter