Mac & Cheese

Sometimes the greatest life lessons or biggest epiphanies come when we least expect them. That just happened to me, so much so it inspired me to get up at 5:30am on a weekday when I didn't have a day job to report to that day to share my epiphany with you. The story goes a little something like this...

I was having a nice phone conversation with a friend one night, he was telling me about the good day he had at his job. It is important to note that he has only been at his job for about 2 months at this point. That day at work they had a department pot luck. Public Service Announcement, you have to be careful at pot lucks...the reality is that not everyone can cook so my rule of thumb is that if I don't know the maker of the dish on a personal level, thus I probably already know their kitchen habits and abilities, I will NOT eat their dish! In those cases I stick to the items that were clearly bought from the store...that helpful PSA will save you ruined taste buds and bubble guts later.

Back to the story, my friend then began to tell me about some mac and cheese that one co-worker provided. My friend really, really, really tried everything he could to convince me that this mac and cheese was truly edible. First I was told "she tried," I knew right then this was not going to be a positive critique. Next I was told " she's young," the co-worker is in her early 20s thus old enough to know how to cook. Then I was told "she's mixed," at that point I DIED WITH LAUGHTER!!!!

As I think back on the story, it continues to make me literally LOL! I laughed so hard that if I had not been casually leaning on my kitchen counter as we talked I would have ended up in the fetal position on my kitchen floor laughing.

This is when the light bulb went off in my head, it simply reminded me that sometimes you just have to grin and bare it. That's exactly what my friend had to do when the co-worker walked up asking if he liked the mac and cheese. The reality was my friend really wanted to let the co-worker know that they should never bring that mess to another pot luck until they practice making the dish at least a dozen more times and have a private focus group taste testing after each attempt, but instead he smiled and said "it was good!"

Brutal honesty is helpful, but it does have a time and place. This is something that I am continuing to learn everyday. I have always been brutally honest and my reputation has not always flourished because of it. Just remember that sometimes it really is better to just grin and bare it rather than keep it real. Dave Chappelle joked, and I know we all laughed, that sometimes keeping it real can go wrong...so save yourself and just SMILE!