Friday, March 6, 2009

Bob the Apple

There are a lot of things that bug me, but I don't confront because they're very little things. Mooching is one of them. I think the polite thing to do in any situation is to offer to pay. A true moocher doesn't even bother. I've mooched before with a pathetic reason: I was too afraid to say anything at the time. It's not something that I'm proud of. Anyway, I know of a situation going on and it's making me think about moochers in this economy. There's a situation I'm familiar with, but I don't want to go into the details, so I'll tell a little story.

Bob is a little apple. He wants to be a big apple, so he stays in his spot on the tree. All of the apples are growing steadily, but he needs a little help growing, so a small group of apples tries to make an arrangement to help. They propose that he gets more water as long as they get a bit more sun time. He accepts. Time goes on and slowly, he takes back his time while still taking the water. Soon, he's not giving up any sun time at all in return for his water consumption. The other apples say, "Uh, when do we get some sun time?". Bob ignores them. The other apples don't think he heard, so they ask again. He continues to ignore the issue. They drop it. A few more days pass and Bob is getting really big and the other apples are having trouble growing. They plead, "Either we get sun time or you don't get water. We need a certain amount of both to grow. We're not getting enough.We don't want to rot!". Bob doesn't care. He finds every excuse to avoid the issue. "Well, the apples on that tree are bigger. I'm still not big enough." "I'll give you more sun time tomorrow." The excuses go on and on. The other apples are sad, but they can't do anything.

The story isn't over, so I don't know the ending. Still, Bob the apple makes me mad. My point is that serious moochers can really hurt people. I know some people have really good reasons to, but there is always a time when it has to end. If anyone sees a potential Bob the apple, I recommend checking your resources before you let them into your life. Otherwise, if you're like me, you'll get a little upset when Bob the apple decides he's in charge.

Now that I've ranted my imagination to death, I'll share something great. About a week and a half ago, our cherry tree blossomed! This is great because the tree fell last year, so I thought it was going to die. I love taking pictures of those blossoms. They're pretty and so abundant, I have plenty of subjects to practice taking pictures on. :D I can practice on the plum blossoms, too, but the unexpected is a nice surprise. Here's an unedited picture because I'm glad to see the return of the cherry blossoms:

NTGIF (Not Too Glad It's Friday),
Alyssa

2 comments:

  1. That's a beautiful photo and an interesting story. I think I got the gist of it. I have a number of friends who are not moochers, but when you do cover them with the plans for them to pay you back (ie. theatre tickets that must be purchased all at the same time), they will forget to pay, and then I feel like a jerk for reminding them several times. Now I've gotten to a point where I either don't include them or I ask them to cover everyone and they will get paid back. It's frustrating.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sadly, that's what it has to come to. Fairness isn't much fun for friendships.

    ReplyDelete