A few weeks ago Brenda couldn’t find a small block of wood that went with a table we bought at a yard sale. “I put it right here in the corner of this box in the garage.” We looked all over. Looked in the garbage can. Maybe the grandkids played with it and lost it. Are you sure it was there? She totally remembered putting it in the corner of that box.
I looked up and down the driveway anyway, then opened the hatch on the 4-Runner – there it was. In the corner where the wheel well bulges up. I could picture her putting it there and then seeing the box in the garage and being busy and just thinking, corner. Really, she was totally sure. I was glad it happened to her – now I’m not the only one. Lately, when one of us thinks the other is a little too confident in some matter of judgment or memory, we say, “and that block is in the corner of that box, too.”
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I was sure the balloon boy thing was NOT a hoax. I heard the whole 911 call – it was way too real. When you’re acting, most people try too hard and add too much drama. This was convincing because it wasn’t trying at all to convince. I’m pretty discerning on this kind of thing. Most people didn’t take time to listen to the entire eight-minute 911 call – I did. Plus, you could really picture a kid messing up, getting scared, and hiding. Even when the kid made the comment about doing it for the show, I thought it’s just a kid saying a thing that people misinterpret – happens all the time.
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We all knew Michael Jackson was all drugged up. Abusing pain medication, right? And who knows what else. Friends, doctor acquaintances, everybody in-the-know, knew. Even his sister said when the toxicology results come back all heckaroo would break out. When the results did come, all that talk stopped. He may have been all messed up using an anesthetic to sleep, but only the drugs the doctor gave him for that and to try to revive him were in him when he died. No illegal drugs or evidence of abuse. He was a normally healthy 50-year old.
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I’ve been around awhile and you’d think your confidence in your ability to be right would grow as you get older. It’s not working out that way. Maybe it’s best to not let your conclusions put down roots when it comes to being sure about people, events and your own performance. It could get embarrassing.