Facing the unfamiliar is not something we love, especially being children of routine, but it could turn out fun, as mine did, a few years ago, when there was no lunch laid out for me that day:
It’s a habit of mine to leave my front door open, while I write in my study. The cook comes in everyday as she has been coming for the last fifteen years and she cooks a meal for me. When the children were at home, she cooked for all of us, but now it’s just for me, as my wife has her lunch between surgical cases at the hospital.
But, that day, there was no lunch laid out for me.
“Where’s my food?” I nearly shouted, and found both my dogs staring back at me, silently telling me that no food for the master meant no food for them also. “Did you see the cook?” I asked the first fellow, but he yawned and continued looking at my toes.
I looked once again at the table and groaned. What was I supposed to do? What had happened to the cook? Why hadn’t she come? Would I have to starve? Was this the beginning of a two-meal day I would have to follow?
A diet conspiracy?
Suddenly I faced the unknown.
As I wondered what to do, I remembered what the children did, when something like this happened. “Let’s ring up mummy!” they would say in chorus.
“Yes,” I whispered to myself, “Let’s ring her up!”
But as I took the phone to dial, a bit of adult thought ran through me. What would she say anyway? She would patiently listen to me, leave the poor patient she was handling and work out a way to get me my food. I put the phone away, “Hey!” I suddenly thought, “This could mean I can go out and eat!”
I shouted for my driver but found he had gone out for lunch.
That’s when I found the menu.
Pizza!” I exclaimed to myself.
What a wonderful excuse to have pizza.
And that’s how the unknown was converted into a delicious, mouth- watering lunch, just by enjoying the fact that the cook hadn’t turned up.
How often we look petrified at the future when we don’t see the familiar. My lunch laid out on the table was what I was familiar with, my cook arriving on time, was what I was used to, but finally, the pizza I ate was much tastier than anything before.
We walk through life happy to have the same routine. We are not like mountain climbers, facing a different peak everyday, and enjoying the new view from a different mountaintop. We want the familiar.
But if your familiar is getting a bit disturbed, then smack your lips and rub your hands together as a delicious experience may be awaiting you..!
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and author. He blogs at www.bobsbanter.com and can be reached at bobsbanter@gmail.com
