Big ideas - You don't know the whole story

In first grade, my kid Daisy went to a nice private school in NYC's West Village. It was so lovely. Expensive, but lovely. There were a lot of very wealthy people who sent their kids to that school and the Steuben's (Names have been changed here just for kicks.) were some of them. She was a little mousey and sweet and, I think worked full time as a mom to their kids, and he was the son of one of the richest men in the world and, I think, worked in the family business. He had his own driver take him everywhere in a huge black Suburban and, well, ok, even if that seemed a little bit much, I guess that's what rich people do, so, whatever. Now, I'd spoken to him (let's call him Robert) some (we each had a kid in the same class) at school events, fundraisers and whatnot and he always seemed friendly enough in those situations, but in a daily, casual situation, it was completely different. And it was irksome.

He and I would pass each other a few times a week in the narrow hallway as we were walking our kids to class or leaving afterward. And I would always give him a nod, a little smile and upward shake of the head as if to say "hey! There you are! We know each other! Hello!!" and he would just ignore me. Over and over and over again. So I started doing a more exaggerated nod and a bigger smile and probably even engaged my eyebrows in the silent salutation. I'm sure I eventually looked like an aggressive clown in my attempts to get this chauffeur driven douchebag to return my greeting. But he never did. And I started to see him as a dick.

One evening, in the midst of all this, me and the missus were out for cocktails with John and Olga and we were dishing on the school and the other parents and whatnot and the subject of the Steubens came up. And how nice they are and how they're so supportive of the school and whatnot, and I shared my dissent: that he's a douchey snob who can't even engage in the common courtesy of returning a hallway hello. I shared my story of ever-escalating nods and smiles and eyebrows and getting ZERO in return from this Robert guy. I shared my opinion that he was NOT a nice guy at all but was, rather, in fact, kind of a jerk. Everyone appeared surprised to hear this, including my missus who, when I'd finished my mini-rant, turned and matter-of-factly said to me:

"You know he's legally blind, right?"

I did not.

"Yeah, he even has a driver, 'cause he can't really see."

Yeah. Huh. No, I did not know that. Any of that. And I was kinda shocked. And maybe a bit embarrassed. But I got this story out of it, anyway. A great story. Illustrating that, ever-so-often, you just don't know the whole story. One doesn't know the whole story. OK: I don't know the whole story. Which is actually a great place to be, 'cause if you're there, then it's possible that you might just learn something. Or at least, get schooled.