The Discounted Camel

Someone once said that the art of communication is the ability of a person to transmit a message so that the person receiving it could replicate it in his or her mind. It was also said that it is the responsibility of the receiver to be sure that the message is received correctly by the use of creative and artful questions. That's a pretty good definition.

Webster defines communication as: "sending, giving, or exchanging information and ideas, which are often expressed non-verbally and verbally.

Here's the thing; Do we really need to define communication? We all do it every day. Someone talks and another person listens. Simple.

Maybe not. We are all guilty of either not giving our full attention to the person speaking or of not speaking clearly enough to get our message across. This is especially true when it comes to communication between husbands and wives.

Let me give you an example.

Not to long ago I received a phone call from my husband, Bruce, while he was at work. What I thought he said was "Hey we just got in a damaged camel do we want it?"

Bruce works a a major hardware store and they carry a wide assortment of things besides hardware including household items, yard and garden art and so forth. So when he called about a month ago and said they had received a damaged camel in that days shipment, the image of a cute little ceramic camel came to mind.

I thought it might look great on our coffee table so I said "Sure, how much is it?"

I heard him shift the phone to his other ear and shuffle some papers before he said "With my employee discount it comes to four-fifty."

"Sure" I said "That sounds good, go for it. How big is it?"

"It's a 10 footer" he replied

My mind flipped from a little $4.50 ceramic camel to the image of a $450.00 ten foot camel. Now that might seem like a strange place for my mind to go, but we had recently both admired a life sized horse sculpted out of scrap metal at one of our local feed stores. A 10 foot camel didn't seem overly outrageous as the image drifted though my mind.

"Wow" I said "Ten feet? is it metal?"

There was a pause while my words flashed some sort of image in his mind and he said "Of course it's metal what did you think it was made of plastic?"

Before I could respond he added " The thing is, where would we put it?"

I immediately thought of our neighbors reaction upon waking up one morning and seeing a 10 foot metal camel in our front yard so I said "Well how about out back in the vegetable garden?"

There was a brief pause while he must have been trying to imagine it in our garden, then he said "In the Vegetable garden? Wouldn't it be better to put it out back in the chicken pen?"

Now that made no sense to me. We can't even see the chicken pen from any spot in our yard, what was the point of putting a 10 foot metal camel out in the chicken yard where we couldn't enjoy seeing it?

Instead of addressing the issue of location I said "Well in reality I guess we shouldn't spend $450.00 on yard art anyway, we need other things more. Let's think about it and talk it over tonight."

"Yard Art?" he said a bit harshly "Why would you consider it yard art? I think they are kind of obtrusive so putting it in the chicken yard makes total sense to me!"


At this point I wondered why on earth he would want to bring home a very expensive 10 foot metal camel that was ugly and obtrusive, so I asked "Obtrusive? How damaged is it?"

"Not bad" he said "There is a tweak on one side is all, I might be able to pound it out."

"Well, ok" I said "let's talk it over tonight when you get home."


"Ok" he sighed, "but if we don't want it Jimmy wants to take it home for his dog."

I tried to imagine Bruce's co-workers Labrador puppy playing with a 10 foot metal camel. "What would Jimmy's dog do with it? " I asked "Spending $450.00 on a fake companion for his dog is a bit eccentric don't you think?"

Bruce let out an audible sigh and said "What are you talking about? What fake companion?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked "I'm getting confused! You just said Jimmy wanted to take home the 10' metal camel for his dog"

There was a very long long pause in which Bruce said nothing, so I finally said "Well? isn't that what you just said?"

"Wait" Bruce said "Repeat what you just said"

"What do you mean repeat what I just said...I said I don't understand why Jimmy would want to take a 10 foot metal camel home to keep his dog company. It doesn't make any sense."

"A 10 foot what?" Bruce asked

"A 10 foot camel" I answered " isn't that what we've been talking about?"

I could hear a hint of a laughter in his voice when he said "Ok, I'm going to say a sentence and you fill in the blank word ok?"

Sighing I said "Whatever Bruce, I'm getting very confused."

"Ok here goes are you ready?

"YES I'm ready" I answered

"Ok we received a 10 foot damaged ? _________" I waited to see if that was the blank pause I was supposed to fill in. When he didn't continue I said "Camel."

Bruce laughed and said "Would you spell that for me please?"

"Bruce this is getting crazy and we are both busy" I said

"Come on, just humor me, spell that last word" he said

Sighing I irritatedly spelled C A M E L

Bruce broke into a laugh

"OK" he said " I we have a communications problem here, I'm talking about a 10 foot by 10 foot by 6 foot high damaged DOG KENNEL That's spelled K E N N E L, aren't we looking for one to house the peacocks in?"

So there you have it! A lesson in the art of communication, and that's spelled : c o m m u n i c a t i o n.