THE BLAME GAME

(From Facebook.)

We humans seem to be addicted to what I call "the blame game." While I was getting dressed for this day, my mind somehow took me back to an incident that happened years ago.

My son, Gene, and I were changing out a water pump on his truck. We were at the stage of bolting it on and Gene was tightening up the bolts. I was about to say, "I think that's tight enough" when I heard the dreaded pop of an overtorqued bolt. Gene was left holding the remains and turned to me and indignantly said, "Why didn't you stop me?"

My first instinct was anger at being blamed for his ignorant mistake, but then, the irony hit and I burst out laughing. After taking the pump back off, I noticed a little piece of the bolt protruding, got my needlenose pliers and carefully backed it out to where I could get my fingers on it and spin it out. There was a perfect substitute in my extensive bolt collection, so the problem was soon solved.

So it is with most human problems. Instead of calmly and cooperatively going about seeking a solution, people want to play the blame game and often, nothing gets done. I'll let you run with that. I have more important things to get on with.