When you don’t like someone: 
I fell in a Prairie dog hole.
Some people hurt themselves running marathons, fighting wars, battling blazes, or reaching up to grab a cup off the shelf. Others of us hurt ourselves falling in prairie dog holes.
I was taking my dog Hazel for a walk. Now, I know what you’re thinking:
“Why were you walking out in the open prairie.”
I wasn’t. I was less than one block from my apartment building. I live in annoyingly white suburb that has as much diversity as a typical NFL coaching staff.
Hazel and I were meandering along the sidewalk when I caught a glimpse of another dog and it’s owner ahead. I, doing the correct thing, (since my dog is crazy) stepped off the sidewalk to make way for them and proceeded to fall directly into a prairie dog hole.
It is at this point that I could end this post with a photo of me with dirt, or get metaphorical about when you step off the beaten path, they’ll be things along the way that will trip you up, bumps in the road, it’s not how far you fall it’s how quickly you get back up, but I’m not going to make this only about me.
I’m going to make this about the prairie dog, too. As much as it was traumatic for me, I can’t imagine what it must have been like on the other end.
A prairie dog in his home gets a text that another one of his cousins out east succumbed to the bubonic plague. Depressed, he meandered over to his edible weed. (It is Colorado after all.) When out of NOWHERE a hot pink and grey Nike sneaker came crashing through his ceiling with a human leg attached.
As soon as the dirt and debris settled, he poked his head out of what was once his roof to see what in the world just happened. He seeing me, didn’t appreciate me decimating his house. I seeing him, didn’t appreciate him having a house.
I felt a bit murderous and thought about having the town kill all the prairie dogs, because the land is ours now. Remembering his people were in fact here first and that white people’s last attempt of killing off things of indigenous nature over land a 100+ years ago left somewhat of an unpleasant taste in people’s mouths-I backed off. Hazel had already been long gone.
I would love to tidy bow this story with the prairie dog and I becoming friends. Sharing his weed under the stars while philosophizing which is worse -Covid or the Bubonic Plague. BUT I don’t smoke, nor do I speak prairie dog.
We see each other from time to time. I with my prairie dog hole injury and him with his decimated house. We make eye contact but neither of us speak. He stays busy destroying the underground and I stay busy destroying above ground.
In today’s political, socio economical, and flat our negative climate, sometimes you’ll find yourself foot to face with someone you’d rather not have met. Both of you have been wronged. Both of you are right. So what?
When you don’t like somebody, silently get your bearings, know your place, and move on.
Stacy Pederson is a Funny Motivational / Inspirational Keynote Speaker who has almost died a bunch.