What I Hear You Saying Is . . .

I don't remember the context of this, but the girls and I were talking the other day about how we wish the dog could text us while we're out. However, we know exactly what he would be texting us:

    Where are you????

    When are you coming back??

    Come home!

    Come home!!

    Come hooooooooooooome!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, it would be interesting to hear what the dog would say if he could talk. I often give voice to what it looks like the dog is thinking:

    Walk? Did you say walk?

The adorable mutt

    Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! Walks are my favorite thing in the whole, big, wide, wide world!!!

    Are you really going to take me for a walk? Are you really? 

Really? 

REALLYYYYYYY???

Our dog is just so darn cute.

But it occurred to us that, if we could really hear what he is thinking, it would probably be something annoying. Like Stan, on “Dog with a Blog”. (You're not familiar with the Disney Channel series, “Dog with a Blog”? Consider yourself blessed.) Chances are, we look at Wheatly's overwhelming cuteness and attribute cute thoughts to him when he may very well be cussing us out or something. Maybe it's better that we don't really know what our pets are thinking so we can just assume they're thinking something that we like – then we like them better.

And wouldn't it be nice to be able to do this with people? To press the mute button so they can't talk, look at them, and assume that if they were talking, they'd be saying something nice that we agree with, so we can like them? But the fact is, I would probably see little disagreeable gestures or looks and jump to the assumption that I know that what they're thinking is mean and nasty and ungodly and deserving of contempt. So I can feel justified in not liking them.

I mean, I do that already. Don't you? I even hear the words that come out of their mouths and color them with the assumptions I've already made about the person.

When you think of it, it's entirely possible that our feelings about others have less to do with what kind of people they are and more to do with what kind of people we are. 

And good heavens . . . isn't THAT revealing.