I'm allergic to tears. I don't mean metaphorically, as in hating to be around people who cry. I mean tears make my eyes swell up to many times their normal size so that I can't even see. I've tried cucumber slices, Witch Hazel, ice packs - nothing helps. So naturally I try to avoid crying. The problem is, I inherited from my tender-hearted father a tendency to tear up at the slightest provocation. I'm the joke of the family. My sister claims I cry at supermarket openings. I cry when I give a talk in church. I cry when I teach Sunday School. Last week on Veteran's Day I was telling a class of third graders about how my uncle died in World War II a few weeks after I was born, and that my mother was so overcome with grief she couldn't take care of me. Of course I started crying. A little girl raised her hand and asked me "Are you all right?"
In the movie "A League of Their Own," Tom Hanks plays an aging, boozing manager/coach of a woman's major league baseball team. When one of his players breaks into tears, his reaction is: "Are you crying? Are you crying? There's no crying in baseball!" I love that line! I wonder how I could apply it in other contexts:
"There's no crying in real estate!"
"There's no crying in the supermarket!"
"There's no crying in yoga!"
"There's no crying in algebra!"
It could work.
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