Are you missing your black olives?

Now, you may be asking, "What the heck kind of question is that?" I'm going to delve into the philisophical for a moment... but first I have to start out with a really powerful anecdote.

To fill some of you in, we (the people of the house I reside in) hosted the annual Gabel Christmas party at our house this year. Because we are German (read: devout Lutherans) we do our annual Christmas party potluck style. The customary vegetable tray, some form of pork dish, Christmas cookies and whatnot were already taken care of so we tried to think of something else to eat that was different from the aforementioned foods. For some reason or another, we decided to make the bean/taco-ish dip that usually tastes pretty good. If you don't know what it is... it's a pretty simple formula... refried beans, sour cream, taco cheese, green onion, tomato, and black olives.

Now to be a good host and make sure most of the food is eaten, one has to compromise one thing or another to make sure that others are comfortable. In this case we had to put black olives on only one side of the platter because we have picky folks in the crowd. Most peple got in line to eat before me and managed to consume the side that had the black olives. When it was time for me to go through, I was sadly dissapointed to see that my only option was the dull and oliveless portion of the dip. Let me make this clear by saying that this dip is NOT complete without the black olives. I took a scoop, grabbed some chips, and tried to enjoy what I had.

The word "olives" is now a metaphor...

This may be the time of year where you may have guests in your home or you're just trying to do something nice for someone. One man's "Olives" may be another man's "Fruitcake". You may try to... Are you still reading this? Do you really think that a story about bean dip could unlock some kind of profound meaning? It's me we're talking about. This is great, I GOT YOU! I bet some of you stopped reading after the whole "olives as a metaphor" thing, that's ok... I have a level of respect for you that you cannot know because you stopped reading.

Now, if i told you the whole story... which I will now... you will see how life really is. We made the bean dip... everyone ate it before me and they got violently ill because I grabbed the wrong sour cream. The stuff we used also happened to be present at our 4th of July cookout... and the old fridge which it happened to be in broke down in August and sat in 90 degree weather for a week. Now that's a good life lesson... let someone else eat before you for safety purposes. That may seem increidbly negative but I guess it's the French-Canadian in me.