The princess and her Throne
Tag Archives: people
Small Town Life – Airport Diva
What with the whole 4 funerals and a baby thing we’ve been dealing with this summer, I have spent alot of time in airports.. with my newborn… trying to be discrete about diaper changes and breastfeeding.
At one of my many layovers, I was sitting next to a lovely teen. When I say lovely, I mean, this girl was fashionable, naturally pretty, and had a very bubbly personality. She had never flown before and started to freak out when she couldn’t find her boarding pass. After assuring her she could simply walk up to the counter, show her ID and get a new pass, I gave her a few other bits of advice and then moved a few seats down when she got a phone call.
It was a small airport and no matter how much I tried to give her privacy to have her conversation, I couldn’t help but overhear her talking to her friend.
“Well, he didn’t ask me to come. I TOLD him I was coming. I know! If he wants to be like that I’m just going to have to tell him what I think! He’s my boyfriend and she’s not even there! I don’t know. My dad paid for the ticket but I mean, I’m going out there and I’m GOING to be there for 10 days so it BETTER go good.”
Hmmm…. I wanted to grab her and say, “I have a great show called ‘How to Lose a Guy in 1 Easy Step.’ Wanna star on the first episode?”
NO! DON’T GO! The relationship isn’t worth the cost of this plane ticket.
But I didn’t.
I don’t have advice that would be listened to and I don’t understand so I stayed out of it but… It was hard. I wanted to say to her, “You are worth so much more than that! Don’t be that girl. Dump him and move on to someone who will want you where ever they are! That’s a real relationship.”
But… she was a teenager.
Oh, the drama….
Small Town Living – The Inverse
The inverse of the awesomeness of knowing everyone in town, being an integrated community, is that everyone knows everything. There are no secrets. I had jury duty a while back and realized how hard that must be for the local court system. How can you find objective jurors in a town where everyone knows about the case already because they are all integrated?
It reminds me a bit of that movie Mystery Alaska where the town goes after some guy in the beginning of the movie in court and… well, I forget the story line but it’s hilarious how tight knit the community is. They are not going to be pushed around by an outsider.
It’s hard to keep to yourself in a small community. You can’t NOT invite people to a party. They are going to find out. You can’t keep anything small and to yourself, everyone will know. There is talk.
Recently in our little town, there was a land war over a piece of property. It became a huge community issue. Something that wouldn’t make the local news in a city was a major issue that was discussed in the opinion section of the newspaper every single day and indeed, is still being discussed over and over in the local coffee shop, the city counsel and homes all around town. The players were well known community members and what should have been a personal property issue became a community dividing conflict. A rift developed between the sides. It still exists. Somehow, it felt like a huge family feud! I was amazed at what passion was behind an issue that barely effected many of the opinion stating contributors in the local paper.
But that’s part of being in a small town
. It’s true what they portray in movies about these kinds of things – they can divide and indeed conquer the beauty and harmony of a small community.
Small Town Life – Love in the time of HIPAA
If you don’t know what HIPAA is you are totally missing out on a very interesting rule of healthcare. 
Basically, any medical records that you are privy to because of a work reason must stay confidential. If you work in healthcare, more than knowing that a person was in your facility (and even that is iffy) is barred from being revealed. However, in a small town, putting the pieces of someones life together can be very easy.
My encounters this week included several conversations. The UPS guy came in the other day to say that he was thinking about quitting his job because the owner of a food truck had dropped dead and he saw that as an opportunity to get some nice equipment. An EMS worker had a bad weekend because of someone dying in the ambulance. A church lady was needing support because she was in shock over the death of her friend at a birthday party. THEY WERE ALL TALKING ABOUT THE SAME PERSON!
This is life in a small town. One death (even if it’s a homeless person) is noticed by everyone.
It’s hard to die alone and unnoticed in a small town. Your life is like a string in a spiderweb. If it moves, everyone feels it. It’s a little scary but nice all at the same time.
Small Town Living – “Don’t you know who I am?”
We have a delivery service for the store and a 24 hour on call delivery man. The other day, a new client called in wanting to have a new delivery set up on the route. She demanded he come out immediately and set her up. When asking some questions to establish her as a regular client she refused to give him much information stating, “Don’t you know who I am? I’m very well known in town.”
Living in a small town has its advantages. Many times you are well known and people are more than ready to accommodate you. However, I’m not sure that assuming you are a local celebrity just because you have lived in a town of 8,800 for your whole life makes for great relationship building.
A real celebrity has come into the store before. We knew exactly who he was but he didn’t assume we did. He was gracious and kind and very easy to work with. He never assumed we knew anything about him until my sister stared at him for a while and the only words that came out of her mouth were, “I love you.” It was priceless.
If you have time to leave a comment, I would love to hear about your brushes with fame – names attached or not.
*all images found on Google
Happiness
I saw this this morning on Facebook. It does have a good lesson it for our lives.
Once a group of 50 people was attending a seminar. Suddenly the speaker stopped and decided to do a group activity. He started    giving each one a balloon. Each one was asked to write his/her name on it using a marker pen. Then all the balloons were          collected and put in another room.
Now these delegates were let in that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written, within 5 minutes. Everyone was frantically searching for their name, colliding with each other, pushing around others and there was utter chaos.
At the end of 5 minutes no one could find their own balloon.
Now each one was asked to randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. Within minutes everyone had their own balloon.
The speaker began— exactly this is happening in our lives. Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is.
Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness; you will get your own happiness. And this is the purpose of human life.
Are Some People Just Never Happy
While working my shift at the airport the other day. My coworker and I were already dealing with a deal on our present flight. We than received a phone call telling us our evening flight was going to be cancelled. When this occurs our morning flight is cancelled as well. We looked up contact information for our passengers for that morning flight. We noticed that one particular gentleman would miss all of his connecting flights if he was re-booked to a later flight that day. We called him to see if he could possible fly to Denver this particular afternoon and spend the night to catch his connecting flight to his final destination. He comes rushing into our tiny airport and was in a major tizzy. Telling us how major inconvenienced he was going to be by this change. How he had spent to much money on this trip so far. How he had been arguing with his wife about money. How he didn’t want to pay for his luggage. How his son would have to spend 3 hours by himself while someone came to pick him up from the airport. He just wasn’t happy about all of this. We kept explaining to him how that if he didn’t fly out today he would miss all of his connecting flights and would have to most likely spend an extra day here in our small town. We gave him vouchers for a hotel in Denver, food vouchers for dinner that night and breakfast the next morning. So, I really don’t get what he was complaining about. I don’t know if he is just a planner and one his plans go awry he just gets all bent out of shape. Its people like that make customer service difficult. I mean we try to help the man out but yet he still complained and complained. I guess some people are never happy.
Beauty Unrecognized
Sometimes I wonder whether we should tell people about their beauty.
We women spend alot of time getting it together in the morning just to be able to leave the house with confidence. (side note: We completely erase our face and then paint it on again, squeeze ourselves into incredibly uncomfortable undergarments to smooth out our natural body shape and paste, prod and overheat our hair to make it into a desirable shape. It’s exhausting.)
Once I was in a glass elevator and in the next elevator over, also glass, was a woman and man. She was obviously the mother of the bride and dressed beautifully. I motioned to her that she looked great and she mouthed “Thank you!” It made me realize how much like my mother I am. I am blunt and obvious and when there is any chance of giving a compliment, I don’t think about consequences, I just blurt it out.
A woman came into the store the other day and she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She seemed a little insecure. She placed an order and then came back several days later to pick it up and I had all that time to wonder whether I should blurt out that she was just gorgeous. My sister works with me and she didn’t even hesitate. “You are so beautiful. I just thought you should know.” I wonder if she thought we were crazy. Does it matter? Even if it gave her the littlest boost of confidence and a small incite into how all that work she must put into putting herself together in the morning is paying off, was it worth it?
Life and Photos by Andy 