Funny

Last Friday, I went to a live taping of 100 Huntley Street with my sister and niece.

I’ve passed by the Crossroads building (where they film 100 Huntley Street) in Burlington a number of times and I’ve had the inkling to check out the building for awhile now. It has a neat church and a number of brick houses built into it, making it look like a little village.

My oldest sister from BC (that’s not her picture to the right) – who’s taking Seminary right now – was recently in Ontario to visit our family with her husband and daughter and I thought I’d be fun to go check out the building as an outing. She suggested we find out if they were taping the broadcast that day too, and if so, if we could sit in the audience. It turned out that they did in fact tape live and that we could sit in the audience, which we were told is typically small.

So on Friday morning my sister, niece and I went to the 1-hour live taping (we were the only three in the ‘audience’) and ended up meeting Ron and Moira the hosts of the show (who were very nice – as expected) and got a tour of the building and studios. It was a really good time.

Epiphany in the washroom?

Ok, so all that being said, the real reason I am writing this blog was because while we were there I went to the washroom, as most people do when they go out somewhere, I ended up having an epiphany!

As I pushed open the door to enter the washroom, it just so happend to be at the exact same time as someone coming out who was pulling the door to exit. I’m sure you know the scene I’m talking about. We’ve all had that happen to us before on both sides of the equation. But can you remember what you say when those awkward moments happen?

Well it turned out that I instinctively (and immediately) said “sorry” as we crossed paths to continue on our separate ways. It turned out the other guy said nothing, except “no problem”.

Just after I said “sorry” I wanted to kick myself. “Sorry, was I really sorry?” I thought. “No, no I’m not sorry. That’s ridiculous. So why did I say it?” I should have just said “excuse me” instead, I thought to myself. Especially when the other person didn’t say a thing!

Now I know we Canadians like to use our sorry’s and excuse me’s a lot, but in this case I believe it called for an “excuse me” instead of a “sorry.” I think it’s probably fair that the person entering says “excuse me” for sure, but the person leaving could say it too, but not sorry!

Since this epiphany I’ve found myself paying more attention and noticing what people say in these types of situations. My conclusion so far is that I think we’re all saying sorry way too often when what we really mean is excuse me. We’re not sorry for getting in your way, but we know we did get in your way, so a simple excuse me is justified.

Do you agree? Do you use “sorry” too much? I’d love to hear what you think!

~ Flickr photo credit ~