Fifteen years ago, David and I had an engagement party thrown by his mother, Mary.  She ordered a 4 foot sub sandwich from Subway to serve at the party.  Jill, David’s sister, had the job of picking up the sandwich and paying for it.  David, Jill and I all went to the Subway store to collect and pay for the party sub.  Once the party sub was being unwrapped at the house, it was soon discovered that it wasn’t what was expected from the order.  Anyway, long story short, Jill was upset and wanted Subway to do something about it and they didn’t.  After Mary and David tried to help Jill not be upset, she said, “It’s the principle!”

Well, we still remind Jill about this interaction and laugh about it.  David and I will sometimes say it back and forth to each other in the heat of the moment and it makes us laugh.

Recently I was having a bad day.  It started out rough around the edges from the moment I was awakened and continued to spiral from there.  I was running from place to place, feeling overwhelmed, feeling a bit chewed up and spit out and feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders.  While rushing from one place to another, I was stopped in my tracks.  The road to our house is narrow and only one car at a time can fit.  Well someone parked at the end of the road blocking it.  This isn’t that unusual, so I did my normal honking thing thinking someone went into one of the little shops or into a home and will come out and move it.  I didn’t see anyone arriving and the man who sits at the call box at the end of our road motioned that the driver was in a gated area to the left.  This is a bit of an elusive area, one doesn’t see much happening there and the walls around it are about 4 meters high (12 feet).  The call box man decided to go to the gate and knock…nothing happened.  Yves, the man who owns and operates an electronics repair place, came out of his shop and started knocking….nothing happened.  I got out of the car and went to the gate and started knocking….still nothing happened.  We could see through the crack in the gate that people were inside, but they were deciding not to come to the gate.  Finally after about ten minutes, a man appeared and was met by a fuming, foreign woman who was now 15 minutes late, demanding the car be moved.  Side note:  when there is bad traffic or an accident it’s cultural for drivers to argue openly with one another and it usually draws a crowd who will immediately take sides and also give their two cents.  When the driver finally came out to move his car, he motioned a sorry motion to me and got in his car to move it.  Well, these men who had helped me with the knocking on the gate were not going to let him off that easy and started speaking loudly at him, criticizing him for blocking the road in the first place and so on.  I appreciated that they were arguing the principle of the whole thing on my behalf, but wanted to get a move on it.  I told them as plainly as possible I just wanted the car moved so I can pass by.….but it’s the principle!

The picture is of the road to our house.