Recently we ate at the Fryin’ Pan. After ordering our meals, Shawn and I were enjoying the word search on the kid’s menu. (By the way, I am quite good at this, even when it’s upside down.)
Anyway, as we found all the words listed in the word bank, we circled them with a blue crayon. Other words we found that were not listed, we circled in an orange crayon.
As Scott was at the salad bar, Shawn casually points at the jumble of letters and says, “Too bad there’s an ‘i’ instead of an ‘a’. Firt.”
I looked across the table at him, saw his amused look, then looked down to where he was pointing.
Oh my stars! I busted out a giggle.
I think Shawn must have been surprised by my reaction. Before I knew it, his somber, tired face broke out into a huge smile that lit up the room. He started laughing. I had to admit that was a pretty good observation. I lifted my hand and reached across the table and gave him a high five.
Scott returned to the booth and Shawn explained the humorous discovery to him, too.
More fits of laughter.
I wasn’t embarrassed. Nor did I scold him.
I let the situation play out and let laughter take over our table.
My mind quickly went to The Muppet Show’s Swedish chef as it sounded like something he’d say. Of course I shared my insight with the guys. “Firrrty firt firt firt.” And we laughed some more.
Between freezing all morning in a waiting room filling out questionnaires while our son was hard at work and worrying about a dear friend, laughter gave us a break from the long day we were experiencing.
By changing one letter in a word search game, Shawn brought a ray of sunshine to our day.
Then it got me thinking once again that life is about individual interpretations and how we choose to handle the situations that come before us.
Are we a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of person? Is your day partly sunny? Or partly cloudy?
When one person saw the word “stressed” someone else saw that the same word spelled backwards is “desserts.” Now isn’t that a lovely way to handle stress? Yes, please!
And thank you to the genius who looked at the word “impossible” to discover that if you just separate the first two letters you see the words “I’m possible.”
We finished our delicious meal and headed back to the freezing waiting room for a few more hours. Luckily, at dinner I filled up with vegetable soup and coffee and Scott ordered a coffee to go for me as well. After preparing myself for a better outlook, my afternoon went quickly and was enjoyable. We had more fits of laughter in the waiting room over the whole “firt” situation (okay, Shawn and I giggled while Scott rolled his eyes) and everything was looking up.
Sometimes we have to take a second look at a word, an idea, or a situation and turn it into something funny, something enjoyable or something positive.
What’s going on in your life that maybe you could look at a little differently?
Have a great week, everyone!
