"What you see here, What you hear here, What you do here... please let it STAY here...

there was once a time when after learning your A,B,C's, how to count to 100, and "The Lord's Prayer", this would be the next thing you learned. It was a given, but in those days, children were to be seen and not heard, so they bet' not be heard repeatin' grown folks business. In fact - children actually "went outside" and "played"... ! Yes. Out the door. Front yard. Back yard. It didn't matter, somebody's yard ... you just didn't sit around adults, you had to go find some business of your own. Unfortunately, that type of child rearing isn't done anymore, and standard etiquette isn't being passed on from one generation to the next like it once was, and what we have now is a society full of people who have no tact...

The "Diva" has time after time, had to "bite" her tongue to keep it from lashin' somebody because they've done the "unspeakable" and asked someone something, or told them something they'd just heard from someone else. You DO NOT have to repeat everything you hear. Period. If you were not there and do not have all the facts, wait. If it were meant for you to be informed - trust me, you will, in due time. And, if you were there, you need not carry somebody's business anywhere else. Some subjects are too sensitive for the parties involved to even discuss if they had to, or you may find yourself getting hurt, ...so there will be times in life the best thing you can do is to keep you mouth closed.

Think about it, suppose your significant other has been caught cheating on you, and let's suppose it was with someone you knew. Would you want people approaching you with ... "I heard", (whatever they heard) ... ? or worse, "Oh, we thought you knew, because everybody else did" ... ??? If you happen to hear that you're neighbors are being evicted, unless you've been paying a portion of their rent every month, why would you need to speak on it? When people have situations or misfortunes in their lives, it's not always necessary to ask "What happened?" Wrong question. "Is there anything I can do to help?" would be the correct one. We don't need the juicy tidbits of our co-workers affair, or whatever reason someone got let go from the job, and "who" got into it with "who". Trust ya' girl. It all comes out in the wash...

"mzstephens" has not only witnessed this "uncouth" behavior, but I've experienced it in my own personal life. I just happened to be blessed with a pretty thick skin, and can let a lot of things roll off my back, and those things I don't, I've been blessed with the "wit" to respond to, accordingly. Everybody is not like me though, and so it will be necessary for you, and you, and you, and you to occasionally have to "check" somebody. Hopefully it won't cause friction within your circle ... ('cause you know how folks are - somebody will take sides because you had to let a person know they were out of line - and the "people" won't like it) ... it's sad but true. Even though many of us call ourselves "grown".

I had to "go there" this week, hope nobody takes it personal. But maybe then we should - take it personally upon ourselves to see to it that this is one of those things we instill in our children, or whomever we make an impression on, be it nieces, nephews, even other adults who make look up to us. Hey y'all, don't believe all that stuff about not being able to teach old dogs new tricks, ... I feel it's never to late to learn. Love and peace ... copyright pending 2007