About a month ago, my brother-in-law put a 30 foot above ground pool. I ad been over to his house on the July 4th weekend, helping him put in the pool. It was kind of fun because I had my Ford 861 tractor over there and after setting up the rim, we used the tractor’s front end loader to pour the sand in the base. Good day, however, not what I was going to write.

The real issue, started weekend before last, See my brother-in-law’s brother-in-law, was going to be away in the Army for a while, and we were sending him off. Just so happens that this is the first time that I had gotten to spend time in the pool.

It was quite fun, all the kids were in the pool, including my “nephew”. Now I say “nephew” because he is not my direct nephew, but our family, being close and all, I consider him kin.

Now let me be firm about something, I care about this boy just as much as if he were my son or direct nephew. And so, if any of the kids did anything to harm themselves or others, I do respond.

Well after some time, I was floating about the pool being the “monster”. This means that I was splashing them, and throwing the kids in the water. All the while making sure they didn’t get hurt and behaved.

Well my “nephew” decided that he was going to get out of the pool. Just as he was walking away, I splashed some water at him.

Well, he yelled “Hey”, and then flashes some signs at me that I interpreted as two things. The first was “F___ you” and the second was “I’ll kill ya”. I knew that is NOT what he intended because he is a very good kid.

Not to be fair, this is not the heart of this child and I knew that he had no idea what it meant. However, being concerned about him, I asked him if he knew what it was that he signed. Of course, he did not. Who knows where is saw it, maybe a commercial, but the point was that he needed to know.

So, I tried to call him close to the pool but after my splashing him, I don’t think that was going to happen, so for 15 feet away, I told him what I thought he had said to me. Of course he said what and I had to repeat myself.

My mother-in-law, who means well, did not hear the entire conversation and thought that I said “I’m going to kill you” to him. So frustrated by what she hear, instead of coming to me with a question, she went to my sister-in-law, who was the boys aunt. Now both of them were furious and came and spoke to my wife, who then did the right thing and spoke to me about it.

Knowing how these things can spin out of control, I commandeered the boys father (who’s going away were celebrating) and told him what had happened (minus what my mother-in-law was doing).

Being a proper chap, he called his boy over, we made it clear that he knew what I was saying and he had fully understood and was not going to do it again. After all, I was only looking to protect the boy from making the same mistake to someone who does not care about him. Case closed, right? Wrong.

My mother-in-law came over to watch the kids last Tuesday and tells me that she is very disappointed in me telling a boy that “I am going to kill him”, which is NOT what said. I explained to her once again that he had flashed me some signs and I was just communicating to him the meaning to me.

See the issue is that people should not take what other people say in part. If you do not know the whole, you shouldn’t assume anything. She knew that she didn’t hear everything, but “what she heard was enough.”

In this case, my mother-in-law, not only misunderstood what I was saying, she passed on this incorrect information to a person that who really wasn’t involved. All this occurs because I wanted a young man, who didn’t know what he was doing, not to get hurt.

However, every day YOU come across the same thing. News reports are flashed at you every day, you hear only part of the story. However, not knowing that, you make judgments based on this partial information. These judgments are then passed onto whomever you run across creating alternate realities.

These realities are not real. They are fiction. They are fiction that has been perpetrated upon you and you do not know it.

Next time you hear a store that says, “Guns in school lead to killings. Last year alone there were 46 fatalities in schools across America which is up from the previous year.” Maybe, just maybe, you will recognize that the 46 fatalities are NOT from guns. Even though everything you heard was real, you lack context because someone at that new agency wanted you to lose context. They did not want you to know that one 1 of these was from guns.

Be careful about what you assume. It most likely is wrong. Get the full story before you jump to conclusions