A tale of two martyrs [Bryan]

Yesterday, Nora had a double-header soccer game, two games in a row that took up the whole Saturday morning. I drew the assignment of taking Nora to the game, while Ellie would stay home with Andrew and Stephen. It was a miserable morning, with a chilly wind and blowing rain. Nora and her teammates did just fine since they were running and moving, but it was quite miserable to be a spectator. I sat there in my cold chair while it rained, being a martyr father. I thought of Ellie, home in our nice warm house. She could keep cozy and dry, have a nice breakfast, and do whatever she needed to do. I was a bit resentful.

Anyway, when I returned home, Ellie was somewhat glum. Come to find out, she was a bit annoyed that she had to stay home while I had gone to the soccer game. I told her how wet and miserable I was, and how surely she had drawn the better assignment. She told me how needy the boys were, whining and complaining, destroying everything in their paths, and how she had felt imprisoned in the house. Surely, she argued, I had drawn the better assignment. She made the case that is was she who was the martyr, not me.

We laughed about this later, two martyrs, each envying the supposedly better situation of the other. While I'm sure any objective observer would obviously agree that I was clearly the more put-upon one here, I thought it was interesting how perspectives differ.