Huh?

During the Christmas season, our favorite Chinese food store always gives out calenders. We always get one-what this says about our eating habits I'm trying not to face, or maybe I should look at it as a testament to our fine patronage-whatever it means I don't care but I look forward to this gesture every year.

Now I have a great amount of respect for the oriental culture and also have this expectation that everything coming out of that realm should be steeped in Confucius-like sagacity. So when I unrolled my calender and glimpsed it for the first time the first expression that fell out of my mouth was "Huh?" I have no love for this term in fact, I discourage my children from using it for -huh- just seems so void of expressive content, lacking in imagination and just plain yucky.

But Huh was called for here because my calender that formally showed and explained Chinese year symbols, bonsai trees and dragons had fluffy teddy bears and this mantra, "Be Faithful, Be Tolerant, Be Anticipated, Be Durable." The words didn't even make sense, the four principles did not follow, they seemed so disjointed and inconclusive, Who Did This? Alright, I told myself, get out your dictionary and try to find the common thread.

Faithful = devoted;
Tolerant = to recognise and respect;
Anticipated = to look forward to and
Durable = capable of withstanding wear and tear or decay.

So what was this purveyor of chicken chop suey trying to tell me? If I am devoted; I will be recognised and respected; my dollar will be looked forward to and that would make their establishment capable of withstanding wear and tear or decay! Wow!! Subliminal Chinese food marketing in riddle mantra form. Once after hearing a long contrived conversation of this ridiculous type an exhausted friend of mine said to another friend about her husband, "Does he always over-analyse everything like that?" Sometimes over-analysing is simply fun!