The Big E – rEliability

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208 – September, 2025

By Elaine Lessig

I bet your first thought, when you read the title for my thesis this month, was that it must be a typo. If not, your next conclusion had to be, “This girl cannot type.” Another likely response begged the question, why is the letter “R” lower case and the letter “E” upper case? Well, it captured, as predicted, your attention. After two-plus incredibly stressful years of building a house, while trying to keep the rest of my life obligations in focus, I doused myself with ‘reliability’. Whatever needed to be done got done. The words, “You can count on me to (fill in the blank),” poured from my mouth more times than I can begin to remember. Yet, here I am, Mrs. Reliability at the ready and wondering why.

Family, friends, neighbors, dog shows, dog clubs, the dogs, and all the necessities of life, food, and home bring onerous demands along with their pleasures. Just as an attempt is made to create a sensible budget for the yearly vacation, some things get excluded. Will those be the most expensive, or simply the ones which require too much time? Who will make those decisions? Does everyone have a specific task assigned to them? How will the lines of communication flow? Can all the vacationers be relied upon to fulfill their assignments? What if they don’t?

Each of us has had experiences where the trust level of one for another is tenuous. Let’s return to our vacationers. Before they go away, they ask the next door neighbors if they would be willing to water their vegetable garden and collect their mail. They agree to the request without hesitation. In return, since the neighbors are ski enthusiasts–who are away frequently during the winter months–the vacationers offer to remove the snow from their own home and the neighbor’s, too. They also collect their mail and put the trash cans inside their garage. Both households exchange small gifts as a way to thank the other when they return home. Over the years, this relationship developed into one where each of the families could rely upon the other.

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208 – September, 2025

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Posted by AnthonyA on Sep 15 2025. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.