I’d forgotten again.

We’re having some “important” guests over another week has passed and I still haven’t re-covered the dining room chairs.

I think about calling someone in but I don’t think they come on two hours’ notice.

So I attempt a last-ditch effort of peeling all the old leather off and decide to just leave the cushions as they are. Or maybe I’ll drape some material over the back of the chairs — just to show they’re “in process.”

But as the morning goes on I come to terms with the fact that there will be no hiding the peeling cushions.

I cancel out the idea of explaining to the guests why the chairs aren’t covered yet. This would be self-incrimination. They might even give me the benefit of the doubt and come up with a better explanation than I can.

Someone once taught me about business: Don’t tell them what you’re willing to pay. Ask what their price is first. Sometimes you won’t believe how much less they had in mind.

I hope the same will apply here.

I think of what they could surmise. They could say “Ahh she’s so busy with good things she doesn’t even have time to look at the chairs.”

Or they could think: “Such laziness. How much does it take to go buy some material?”

Or they could think “But even if they don’t have the money at least they could have staple-gunned some cheap material on. So obviously they must be unwatchful.”

Or they could think we’re just unorganized.

Or think we’re tzaddikim who don’t care about gashmiyus.

Or think maybe the chairs just happened to peel the night before they came.

Or maybe these important guests also have peeling cushions and now they’ll feel more at home.

Or maybe it’s all true. There could even be seventy reasons.

The other day someone said something very disturbing to my youngest daughter and she couldn’t make peace with it because she trusted the person. I could see on her face how much it was bothering her. I tried to think what to say to her. How could I explain to her that each person sees or thinks his own truth from his own place?

The crystal ball I realized. I could use the crystal ball hanging from our dining room light to explain to my daughter that just like someone sitting on the left side of the table sees more yellows someone sitting on the right sees more blues. This is how the same thing looks totally different to each person.

I have a friend who comes home late every day from work hungry tired and thirsty.

When she gets home before she even gets in the door someone always asks her for something to eat something to drink or the answer to a question.

She feels so bad. “Why isn’t anyone offering me something to eat or drink?” she tells me. “I’m starting to feel like why should I look forward to coming home? Before I even get in the door I’m in an automatic bad mood.”

I tell her how this happens to me tons of times and the way I conquer it is to imagine that a cold glass of water with ice is waiting for me on the table everyone’s smiling my husband’s beard flowing with light.

She laughs.

“If it were only the truth” she sighs.

“It is the truth” I say “because that’s what they really want to be doing”

She understands. “It’s how we interpret it” she says.

“The Torah says there are seventy ways.”