In my 9th grade English class, in addition to learning the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet and how to identify a gerund, Mrs. Ware taught us all about adages. Every week she would write a commonly used adage aka idiom aka phrase on the chalkboard and give us pipsqueak freshmen a few minutes to try to interpret the meaning.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
To err is human, to forgive divine.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Beyond explaining the meaning of these adages, she would also give a brief history lesson on how the saying was born. Now, I don't know about my fellow classmates, but I found all of this very fascinating and before I knew it I was using these adages in my every day turn of phrase.
I didn't really think it was weird until I got married and spoke to my husband in idioms and received strange looks from him like I was speaking another language. Apparently adages from ye olden days do not translate well with my generation.
But whatever, I like them. Which is why I have lived my life by one of my favorite philosophies that I learned in Mrs. Ware's class.
You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
I love that adage. And I love the frame of mind that it is better to be nice than mean in all situations no matter how upset you may be. I always try to be understanding and say things like "oh, these things happen" "it's fine" "don't worry"....because people appreciate patience and understanding and will likely bend over backward to try to rectify whatever wrong has occurred.
Fast forward to this past week. We have had one misfortune after another happen at our apartment. First, on Monday I received a text from the landlord stating that the water in our apartment had been turned off for an indeterminable amount of time due to a leak in the area. Uggh, great. Inconvenient, but not their fault.
A few hours later, I got a text from my father in law saying that our apartment's heat wasn't working. Apparently the water heater doesn't heat water when the water has been turned off. Okay, this wasn't good and by this point it was SNOWING outside so it was time for me to turn on my charm and sweet talk someone into coming to fix these problems ASAP. Because you know...you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, so there was no need to start fussing at anyone.
We finally got our heat working again at about 7:30 that night, and I had to humbly pat myself on the back for using my "honey" to get maintenance to come fix our problems quickly rather than the "vinegar" that my husband wanted to use.
The very next morning when I woke up, I walked out of the bedroom and heard what sounded like a bush-hog in our kitchen. WHAT IN THE WORLD? It seriously sounded like someone was running a chainsaw or something equally as loud. I was pretty scared as to what I was going to discover when I turned the corner into the kitchen. As I walked into the kitchen I quickly figured out that the piercing sound was coming from the garbage disposal. Somehow the disposal had kicked on and had been running for who knows how long and the kitchen smelled like we were about 5 minutes away from a house fire. This was not acceptable. And it was the second time that this has happened. A few months ago we returned from a day trip to Bowling Green and discovered that the disposal was running. I can't imagine if we had not returned to the apartment in time and it had caught fire...Lucy was home all by herself.
So I called maintenance again with a new complaint. Even though I was upset, I maintained my nice demeanor and they quickly came to replace our disposal switch with a less possessed one that they assured us would not give us any trouble.
I thought all of our problems had finally been solved, when I got yet another phone call from my father in law saying that I needed to call maintenance AGAIN because there was a funny chemical smell coming from the furnace. I seriously thought he was playing a joke on me. But no...here we go again, another maintenance issue.
So I called maintenance AGAIN and using my cheery voice asked for someone to come check out this smell. I was really NOT HAPPY by this point, but I just kept repeating to myself...you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So the maintenance men came and let us know that they had sprayed the vacant apartment beneath ours with some sort of non-toxic (though VERY pungent) sealant and the stench would probably not be aired out for about 12 hours.
12 HOURS???? Um, no.
To use another one of my favorite adages, this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Very long story short, Chris placed a few strongly worded phone calls and emails and before we knew it they were opening the doors to the vacant apartment and running fans and offering us guest suites to stay the night in. I ended up going home with hopes of performing a de-stinkifying miracle while Chris's parents had taken Amelia and Lucy to their house. So I opened up our doors and ran a few fans of our own along while I lit every candle we owned and sprayed Febreeze on every square inch of the apartment. The smell was seriously so strong that I could taste it in my mouth. And bleh...it tasted like garbage. But after a few hours, by the time Chris got home, miraculously, the smell was gone.
Fast forward to when I came home yesterday. I found a notice on our door saying "Congratulations, your apartment has been selected to receive brand new stainless steel appliances!".
Well would you looky there.
So as it turns out, perhaps I have been living my life using the wrong idiom all along. Because sometimes you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar...but my husband has now taught me that the squeaky wheel certainly gets the grease.
I guess I am the idiom who has been using the wrong adage all along!
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