It Takes All Kinds

Last week, while I was sitting in the waiting room in a medical office, a man in a chair across the room from me solemnly told me it’s a proven fact that Meryl Streep is a cannibal.  You can imagine my surprise at the revelation. When I was called into the back, I marveled to the doctor about the variety of patients with whose thinking he has to adjust himself in the course of a day’s work.  “That’s nothing,” he said without batting an eye, when I revealed my waiting room conversation.  “I have another patient who is convinced that all women are reptilian.”  This was also news to me and just as difficult to believe — because personally, I’ve never been quick enough to catch a fly using my hand, much less my tongue.  Once again, I was struck by the incredible diversity of people in the world.  Those views seem absolutely out of the range of credibility to me and yet, to the people who hold those tenets, they must be —  if not totally logical or explainable — somehow believable. It takes all kinds, I remind myself.  It takes all kinds. But it’s no wonder, with views as divergent as these, it’s hard to establish a quorum at a meeting, to find common ground choosing candidates to run for office or even get family members to agree on where to go for dinner.