Assumptions

I heard about a traveler who, between flights at an airport, bought a small package of cookies.  She then sat down in the busy snack shop to glance over the newspaper.  As she read her paper, she became aware of a rustling noise.  Peeking above the newsprint she was shocked to see a well-dressed gentleman sitting across from her, helping himself to her cookies.  Half-angry and half-embarrassed, she reached over and gently slid the package closer to her as she took one out and began to munch on it.

A minute or so passed before she heard more rustling.  The man had gotten another cookie!  By now there was only one left in the package.  Though flabbergasted, she didn’t want to make a scene so she said nothing.  Finally, as if to add insult to injury, the man broke the remaining cookie into two pieces, pushed one piece across the table toward her with a frown, gulped down his half, and left without even saying thank you.  She sat there dumbfounded.

Some time later when her flight was announced, the woman opened her handbag to get her ticket.  To her shock, there in her purse was her package of unopened cookies.  And somewhere in that same airport was another traveler still trying to figure out how that strange woman could have been so forward and insensitive.  Assumptions are shaky things to rely on; situations are not always as they appear.