Monkey Matters

The Monkey Man was thinking about a recent outing to one of his favorite restaurants. A couple of the monkeys from the troop along with Mrs. Monkey Man went with him. They were enjoying one of his favorite meals when the waitress came over and asked how things were with the meal. As the Monkey Man raged on about how marvelous the meal was, one of the chimps noticed the waitress had spilled a small container of butter on the floor. He was very animated in making sure it got cleaned up very quickly.
The Monkey Man and the Mrs. was thinking how nice it was that this young chimp wanted the mess cleaned up so nobody would slip on the butter. The Monkey Man grabbed a napkin that was nearby and handed it to the chimp. He then proceeded to clean off the butter, not on the floor, but on his brand new shoe. The entire dinner party thought it was very humorous that the young chimp was more concerned with the butter on his shoe than the butter on the floor. We had all assumed he was worried about the butter on the floor.
This experience got the Monkey Man thinking. How many times, do we think we know what is behind someones intent, without really knowing or trying to understand what is important to them or what their intent really is?
Was the Monkey Man any less impressed with this chimp? Not at all. The Monkey Man was impressed that the chimp would take care of his belongings. He also had pointed out the butter had fallen, when none of the older monkeys had even paid attention to it. Two problems solved, butter cleaned up on the floor and on the shoe. Way to go little chimp!