Son,
When I asked you to “close all the windows” after using my office computer, I was not referring to the glass and wood, three-paned window situated above the large Acer 45” monitor.
No, I was talking about the full-page, Google chrome windows you opened on the large display and were using to watch Breaking Bad—while simultaneously flooding your system with dopamine, playing the 1990s classic PC game Minesweeper on the 27” HD LCD monitor to the left.
I was talking about the window, the virtual window in front of you.
I assumed you could have deduced that I was not referring to the not now and every actually haven been opened glass and wood portal to the outside world.
I assumed you would have known I wanted the virtual windows you opened, closed.
But you didn’t.
You simply pass me as you left my office. Without shutting down your programs.
“Hey!” I bark sternly, thinking you were in the wrong and I in the right.
You look at me with the surprise of a puppy just smacked.
I’m sorry.
Now.
Apparently it wasn’t obvious.
I was in the wrong.
Thinking I was right.
You weren’t disrespecting me and my office (as I thought you were). You thought I was talking about the upper, closed glass window.
If it were obvious that what I meant, you would have known it.
Emmett, I am sorry if my lapse in judgment reinforced any trope in your mind that there is something wrong with your thinking.
You are welcome to come back and any time you want.
You left your geometry book here, by the way.
-Dad
—
With love,
Rabbi Brian