What's The Point Of A Cover If You Can't Judge By It?

Blog post #410 of 365

A young friend recently asked his mom, "What's the point of having a cover if you can't judge by it?" I thought about it and for a bit. I know the purpose of a book cover is to give you an idea of what is inside the book and entice people to look further. So a book is easy. It is perhaps even acceptable to judge a book by it's cover because that is what it is there for. However this young man was actually balking at a gnarled looking orange his mother was about to pack in his lunch for the day.

The other day I was doing a little running around and had an opportunity to see how judgement is easy and sometimes completely in error. Not far from our home on a fairly busy street traffic was coming to a halt at a stoplight. Just in front of me way a cyclist who had amazing legs, a tight pink and white cycling shirt with an over filled pouch on the back, gray hair and a shiny, long dangling earring. As the cyclist slowed I noticed the recklessness of the rider as they stopped a good bike length beyond the crosswalk. I judged this to be a healthy older lady, though in good shape, who might be better on a less busy street. As the light turned I discovered this healthy older lady was in fact a man with a big gut and a mustache. Boy was I wrong.

Later in my day I came up behind two more cyclist also is great shape. They appeared to be a couple with matching red, white and black attire and equally matching bikes. Both older, again with great legs, she had long wavy gray hair about 4 inched down her back and he had short cropped gray hair. Upon passing the fashionable cyclist couple I discovered the long hair belonged to him and the short cropped hair belongs to her. At least I got something right, one was a boy and one was a girl, sigh.

As I neared home I came upon the fourth cyclist who did not look to be in that great of shape. Larger legs and wide butt.Also in biking attire I decided not to guess a sex on this one because I was 0 for 3 at this point. Well as we approached the signal I noticed the biking attire had actually made this woman appear to be much wider than she actually was and on closer inspection she had well toned legs and a completely flat stomach. Now I was 0 for 4.

One last stop had me at the seven eleven on the corner where a sweet couple was discussing the purchase of bananas. The one guy wanted to buy a banana but the other guy was telling him the slightly green banana would be hard and not so good to eat. I showed him how the color was only slightly green and thought it wouldn't have that super ripe flavor of a fully yellow banana it was probably just fine. There were a few I'd never have purchased due to excess green color. As they exited the one guy was totally enjoying his banana and the other guy was shaking his head amazed that the banana inside the greenish exterior was in fact delicious.

My point in all of this is we all judge. Sometimes we get it wrong but we do judge. I honestly try not to judge but I think some things we expect to be a certain way and when it turns out to be different than anticipated I think we just need to go with the flow. As long as we keep an open mind we should be good.