irony

A story of irony to follow up on the divorce post...

I’m at Panera the other day for lunch w/ a few of my co-workers. I walked up to the lady at the register to place my order. She’s a little older than me and seemingly friendly. I smiled at her, asked how she’s doing, and am my normal jovial self. She looked at me and said, "You are very happy today!" I just looked at her and smiled even bigger. "Of course I am, it’s a good day," I think was my reply. Her response really caught me off guard, "Are you getting married?" I chuckled a little bit in my trademark baritone laugh and shook my head slowly, "On the contrary, actually, I just got divorced". She just looked back at me with a blank stare for a few seconds while she comprehended what she just heard. She eventually stammered out, "You mean you’re this happy and you just got divorced?" I looked at her and just smiled again, "Well, yeah. It’s a good thing". I watched her face as a look of awe and amazement washed over her. She smiled at me and caught me off guard again, "Congratulations".

Congratulations on getting divorced? Not something you hear every day, but it does seem appropriate now that I think about it. Why does one offer congratulations to another? I would say to express a sincere recognition for someone’s pleasure or joy and accomplishment. It’s usually correlated with a victory, the purchase of your first car or home, a promotion, or even a marriage. But divorce? It may seem somewhat unorthodox, but if it’s going to help someone improve their life and make them happy, why not? Congratulations on getting divorced. How about that for an epiphany?

So to finish the story, we spoke a few more seconds about her marriage and she offered to buy me dessert to validate her congratulatory wishes. As I enjoyed my chocolate chip cookie, I was left thankful for this stranger’s unbiased, simplistic thought process.