TheBanyanTree: Sainted and Tainted

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Every Saturday our local newspaper, The Pioneer Press, has a column called
“Sainted and Tainted.”  Get it?  “Sainted” for St. Paul?  “Tainted” because
it rhymes with “Sainted”?  And “Tainted” is the opposite of “Sainted”?  Duh.

Anyway, it’s a cool column.  People write in about the good things that
other people have done – the Sainted.  And they write about the bad things
people have done – the Tainted.

For example, someone wrote in and she had slipped and fell on the ice.  She
was just laying there, trying to figure out how she was going to get up, and
then a “sainted” person came by and helped her up and got her to her car.

On the opposite extreme, a woman had $40 stolen out of her wallet.  She
hoped the “tainted” person dropped the money in a Salvation Army red kettle,
but she kind of doubted it.

And so it goes.  Some Saturdays, most of the items are “sainted,” which
always makes me feel like there really are good people in the world.  And
other Saturdays, most of the items are “tainted,” and then I wonder what’s
wrong with humanity.

My neighbor, who I don’t like, and there’s no good reason not to like her,
she just annoys me, had her younger daughter and I assume the younger
daughter’s boyfriend shovel the inch of snow off of our common driveway
yesterday.  That’s a “sainted” event.  They’ve been out of town whenever we’
ve had our heaviest snowfalls, and I cleared out not just the driveway but
also their sidewalks and that’s “sainted” on my part, so this was the first
time one of their shovels hit the pavement this winter.

I washed dishes, prepared a stew to simmer in the crockpot all day, took out
the trash, picked up dog poop, filled the birdfeeders, shoveled the inch of
snow off of my sidewalks, did laundry, vacuumed, watered the plants, took
the dogs for a walk, and balanced the checkbook and sent more money to the
utility company.  How “sainted” can I be?

I did a “sainted” thing for my desktop PC.  I removed the Mcafee virus and
firewall protection from it, because I’m so cheap now that I didn’t want to
pay the $30 renewal fee, and added a free virus protection and firewall to
it.  So far, so good.  I’ll do the same for my laptop this afternoon.

Susan and I went for a twilight brisk walk around Lake Como, a “sainted”
thing to do for our bodies.  Then all of us, boys, Susan, Asher, Ray, and I
enjoyed the stew and French Silk pie while watching Green Bay crush Seattle
and New England outplay Jacksonville.

Ray and Quincy are “saints,” because they put aside their hatred of the
Packers to cheer for them yesterday.  Ray said the Packers were the better
team and Quincy said that he wants to see the Packers play New England in
the Super Bowl.

We did have one “tainted” thing in a day full of “sainted.”  Susan and I
were going into the parking lot of an upscale grocery store to pick up a few
things for dinner.  It was mayhem in the parking lot and cars were backed up
into the street waiting to get in.  Well, a car stopped just inside the
parking lot entrance and waited and waited for someone to pull out of a spot
closet to the door.  Meanwhile cars were lined up for a block waiting along
with this moron.

Susan and I thought that the parking lot was full, but when the car finally
pulled into its spot, we found there were empty spots all over the place.
That person was holding everyone else up just to get a parking place three
feet closer to the door than anyone else.  That’s definitely a “tainted”!

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com

I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the year's.
~Henry Moore
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