proud of me.
I have been harboring this one in my head for a while now, and may have
explained it to some of you already, but you're gonna read it again.
Yeah, you are. I know you are. OK, so you're sitting there saying, "I don't
even know what she's writing about yet, but if I heard it already, then I'm
not going to read it and listen to it again." Well, let me tell you, even if
you are one of the people who I've had the following discussion with, you're
probably going to read it anyway, just for the sake of reading it.
You know what I mean.
Anyway, so today's topic is about whether you miss something or just didn't
experience it.
Yes, there is a difference.
Let's start off with a couple of examples:
1) You are walking down the street when you see one of your friends and they
are carrying a big bag full of Jelly Belly jelly beans. They say to
you, "Wow! You just missed it! They were giving away bags of Jelly Bellys
just before you got here. I got the last one!"
2) You are walking down the street when you see one of your friends and they
are carrying a big bucket full of black licorice flavored ice cream. They
say to you, "Yuck! You just missed it! They were giving buckets of black
licorice flavored ice cream just before you got here. I ended up with the
last one."
Now, in situation #1, you truly did "miss" the Jelly Bellys, didn't you? I
mean, now you're standing in the middle of the street with a craving for
Jelly Bellys. In situation #2, however, did you really "miss" getting gross
ice cream?
Wait, one question for you. Is it "Jelly Bellys" or "Jelly Bellies"? I'm
not sure, but I think the first one looks more right.
Correcter.
More correct.
You get the idea.
Anyway . . .
Here are a couple more examples: Do you really "miss" it when you find out
you were supposed to get all of your teeth pulled? Do you really "miss" it
when someone tells you that some big ugly guy was wearing a Speedo? Do you
really "miss" it when you find out that you turned on the TV two seconds
after Who Wants To Be A Millionare? is done?
I am going to assume that you answered "No, I don't miss that" to all of
those questions. (If you didn't, first of all I think that you have some
problems, and to make up for it, just think of the worst thing in the world,
and use that as the above example.)
Now, my point is . . .
Hey, yes, smart alec, I do have a point. There are lots of times that I
don't, but this is one of those rare times where I actually have something
important to relay to you. OK, well maybe it's not important, but it's your
job to pretend that it is . . .
So, my point is that when someone says, "You just missed that!" chances are
that you might not have really "missed" it. I mean, in a lot of cases, the
phrase "You were not here when it happened" would probably be more accurate.
So, next time someone says to you, "Ew! You just missed our dinner
consisting of chocolate frosting covered hard boiled eggs and peanut butter,
ketchup, and pickle sandwiches," correct them by asking, "Did I 'miss' it, or
was I just not here?"
Think about it. . .
-Sarah