One of the qualities that most people admire in others is the willingness to admit one"s mistakes. It is extremely hard sometimes to say a simple thing like "I was wrong about that," and it is even harder to say,
"I was wrong, and you were right about that."
I had an experience recently with someone admitting to me that he had made a mistake fifteen years ago.
He told me he had been the manager of a certain grocery store in the neighbourhood where I grew up, and
he asked me if I remembered the egg boxes. Then he related an incident and I began to remember vaguely
the incident he was describing.
I was about eight years old at the time, and I had gone into the store with my mother to do the weekly
grocery shopping. On that particular day, I must have found my way to the dairy food department where
the incident took place.
There must have been a special sale on eggs that day because there was an impressive display of eggs
in dozen and half-dozen boxes. The boxes were stacked three or four feet high. I must have stopped in front
of a display to admire the stacks. Just then a woman came by pushing her grocery cart and knocked off the
stacks of boxes. For some reason, I decided it was up to me to put the display back together, so I went to
work.
The manager heard the noise and came rushing over to see what had happened. When he appeared, I was
on my knees inspecting some of the boxes to see if any of the eggs were broken, but to him it looked as if I
was the culprit (做婚事的人). He severely scolded me and wanted me to pay for any broken eggs. I tried to
explain it wasn"t me who had broken them, but it did no good. Even though I quickly forgot all about the
incident, obviously the manager did not.