Sometimes you sleepwalk into situations better avoided. Sometimes there is no avoidance; things happen spontaneously and you happen simply to be there, occasionally involved, and occasionally as a witness to human relations at their most raw, which you would far prefer to avoid.  Sometimes you feel it is much better to continue to 'know' people on the superficial level of casual friendship.  And, sometimes you regret what occurs that exposes you to people at their most vulnerable, when their emotions and their tempers get the better of them.

As occurred a day ago, when the twenty-something son of one of our good neighbours asked my husband for help.  He and his father were busy cutting porcelain tiles, intent on changing the decor of one of their household bathrooms.  They were experiencing difficulties cutting the tiles accurately with the electric tile cutter.  He had brought over an example of the tiles; lovely choices they were, excellent colour and design, but the guide line they drew and the results were abysmal.

My husband recommended that they change the saw blade.  Use a different medium for the guide line; magic markers didn't work too well.  Above all, ensure that the water level remained usefully high; not to let it dry; because that was critical.  He accompanied the young man back to their garage where they had set up the saw and were performing the cutting, and spoke to our neighbour.  Who was not happy at the advice, insisting the blade was fine and didn't need replacing.  Then proceeded to demonstrate just how poorly a job it was doing.  And the water level was almost non-existent.

Fearing his father, fiddling with the blade, might harm himself, the young man shut off the power source.  His father exploded in rage, excoriating his son who was always a tremendous help to his father, for interference.  That wasn't enough; as my husband stood there, startled and embarrassed for the young man, his father continued to ferociously, viciously berate him using the most scurrilous language.  The young man stood there, head hung low, while his father continued his tsunami of accusations of uselessness and base purpose.

We had no idea that this man was capable of behaving in such a manner, to anyone, let alone a son who always went out of his way to be useful, taking for himself all the household tasks that he could manage while attending university and holding down a part-time job, to make life easier for his father.  And our opinion of this man has been changed, and this, to us, represents a misfortune, quite aside from our empathy for the young man.