The Long Joke

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“Your attitude is either the lock or the key to the door of success.” – Dennis Waitley

The lead up to this joke happened 13 months ago. I know because I blogged about it on Sharing the Heart of the Matter. Here’s the setup:

“This past weekend we were packing up to leave the vacation place we stayed at for two weeks. My nine-year-old daughter, Miss O, was helping my friend, Eric, put the rubber raft away. He’d purchased the raft for this trip so he had the original box.

After deflating it, they rolled it up and then Eric said to Miss O, “It’s never going to fit back in that box.”

And Miss O retorted, “Not with that attitude. Let’s be like Mommy and at least give it a try.”

And when I asked if it fit, she replied, “It would have but when he thought I wasn’t looking, he went and put the pump into the box first.”

She recounted this story to me at bedtime the night before we left. Eric must have heard her voice (and my laughter) float down from the bedroom. When I came down after closing the door he laughingly said, “For the record, it was never going to fit back into the box.”“

We mostly forgot about the raft until a couple of weeks ago when my kids and I went looking for sports equipment at Goodwill. My kids have never met a sport they didn’t like, or so it seems. My compromise with them is to buy used sports equipment. And we’ve found some great stuff there.

Like on this last visit, when tucked under a washtub for pets and an old lawn mower we found the exact same raft that Eric had. Miss O was so excited and said, “text a picture of it to Eric.”

.

Eric’s response, “They must have had a great attitude.”

I’m still laughing. Wishing you all a great week and a fantastic attitude. 🙂

(featured photo is Eric’s markup on the original box)

You can find me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wynneleon/ and Instagram @wynneleon

I host the How to Share podcast, a podcast about collaboration – sharing leads to success.

I also co-host the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast, an author, creator and storytelling podcast with the amazing Vicki Atkinson.

76 thoughts on “The Long Joke”

  1. That is such a great story and one that will be repeated over the years. I love it when they parrot us. Once my 4 year old daughter said to my 12 year old son as she entered his room with her hands on her hips, “When are you planning to clean up this pig stye?”

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  3. Zinger from Eric! 🤣 I remember this raft story well and Miss O’s wise and also hilarious commentary.

    Hope you all have a great third week of school ahead!

    Liked by 1 person

  4. “They must have had a great attitude.” I love this so much! This is a story I’m sure the kids will never forget, with such a great lesson attached.

    Liked by 1 person

  33. This is so funny. I love that Miss O has absorbed your positive attitude. “Let’s at least give it a try!” And poor Eric,…with egg on his face. Lol I can tell, he will never live this down. 🙂

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