I Thought I Was Right!

In May 2023, Dave and I were doing our annual spring clean-up in the backyard, and I was cutting dead branches out of the rose bushes.  When I checked the climbing roses on our black metal garden arch, I saw that the roses on the left side were about 3’ tall.  However, the roses on the right side were only 1’ high.  Something wasn’t right. 

I had planted those roses the previous summer, and they were both the same height.  Upon further inspection I saw that the twist ties for the roses were still on the arch – at 3’ high, yet the roses had been cut down to 1’.  The branches looked like they had been cut clean off.  But, who would do such a thing? I didn’t want to entertain the thought that someone had been in the backyard cutting down my roses, but there was no debris on the ground (leaves, twigs) so nothing had eaten them.  I didn’t know what to think.  Something had obviously happened, but what?  I decided to put the thought out of my mind.

However, the next day when I got home from work, I looked out the front window at our hedge and saw that one of the bushes had been thinned out.  I went outside and sure enough, branches had been cut right off, thinning the bush.  I then found another hedge bush on the north side that had also been cut down about 6”.

Both bushes had had some of their branches cut cleanly off, and like the roses, there was no debris on the ground.  I was now faced with the reality that someone, goodness knows who, had been in our yard cutting our bushes down while taking the twigs and leaves with them.

Why would someone do that?  It didn’t make any sense.

In order to try and find an answer, I had Dave go to Best Buy and buy a set of Google Nest cameras to put on the house.  By installing cameras, should the perpetrator return, we would find out what was going on.

Believe it or not, we had our answer in less than 24 hours.  The following morning at 8:30 am Dave received a “person” alert on his phone from the front camera.  What we saw was completely unexpected and not what we  would ever have imagined.

Turns out, there was a moose “on the loose” in the neighborhood doing the rounds and the moose had eaten the roses and the hedge bushes.  I posted the photo on Facebook, and all of a sudden “moose sightings” started appearing online throughout the day.  Dave sent the video clip to the news; and it made the 6 o’clock news!  So, now Dave was famous and I faced the fact that while I was convinced someone in the neighborhood had damaged our bushes, I was 100% wrong.  The joke was on me!

In the end, Dave got the glory, I got to pay the bill for the cameras and the moose was captured and relocated to safer surroundings.

Do you remember a time where you thought you were 100% right about something or someone only to find out you were 100% wrong?

If so, how did that change you?

Recommended Resources

-          A TED article by Julia Galef - “Why you think you’re right, even when you’re wrong” – https://ideas.ted.com/why-you-think-youre-right-even-when-youre-wrong/

-          “Lift Up” You Tube Video (7:55) – (2022 World Semi-Finals Toastmasters International Speech Contest video by Alexandre Matte, 2nd place winner, 2022 Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-3JTPaltdo

Monthly Challenge

Reflect on a time or two in your life when you were 100% certain you were right about something or someone only to find out you were wrong.  What did you learn from that?  How will that experience change you going forward?