Give Thanks...Friends Who Can Disagree (And Still Like Each Other)

 You may be asking yourself--if you looked at the picture of a clown with a BYU logo over its face--why is there a BYU logo over the face of a clown?

That's a good question.

I have a good friend at work. He and I have known each other for over a decade and he's been my supervisor, off-and-on, since that time. He and I agree on many things. There is one thing, however, that he and I disagree on. It's a healthy disagreement...and it involves sports fandoms. I wear red hats/shirts/sweatshirts with the letter "U" found somewhere on the clothes. My friend chooses to wear a different color, in his case, blue with the letter "Y" found somewhere on his clothes.

My supervisor and I chat at least once a week. Our team has a weekly zoom meeting and not only do we get to chat, but we get to see where we all work...the miracle of modern technology. A few months ago, as we waited for the formal meeting to begin, we were just shooting the breeze. Somehow the topic of "things that scare you" came up. My friend said he's always had a thing for clowns. He does not like them, something he'd experienced since childhood.

As fate would have it, I had just hung up a picture of a clown in my office. It was something that for years hung in my father-in-law's CPA office. I thought it was a good choice to hang in our home office. Then, came the zoom meetings and the news that some disliked clowns. I decided to turn the scary clown into non-scary clown.

At the next zoom meeting I let my supervisor and everyone on the team know that I had made some adjustments. I know it's a small thing, taping a white Y on a clown's body, but it's how he and I get along, even though we disagree on some things. We live in a crazy time. People are disowning family members--some are killing each other over disagreements. I'm grateful for a friend with whom I can disagree and have some fun at each other's expense doing it.