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My late mom used to love to end tales with "and the moral of the story is.."

There was always a good lesson lurking behind those infamous words and one of her anecdotes really hit home and has saved me from a lot of what might have been awkward situations, even to this day. Just remembering that tale will usually do the trick when I don't have a ready answer at hand, or more importantly when I do.

Such was the case recently when a friend of a friend asked me to pick up her cousin at the airport. I never did discover where the cousin was actually from, since she had changed planes en route, but I knew fairly soon that it wasn't the south. She hated the whole area.

"How CAN you live here?" she would almost scream at intervals, usually whenever we drove through a run down area. Never mind that the community in question was just poor, it didn't necessarily mean it was a crime filled rat hole. That made no difference to her. "It's just so..so..BACKWARD! And HOT!"

Well, it is hot, I had to give her that. But backward? I pointed out to her, or tried to do so, that we have museums, libraries, theater, fine dining, parks, nice schools, artist venues, higher education, what have you. None of it mattered a whit to this woman who had already made her mind up before she ever got off the plane. Before wondering briefly just how much of a crime it would be to stop and dump her skinny butt off in one of those "backward crime ridden neighborhoods" she was so afraid of (where, no doubt, someone would have taken her in and helped her out and, more importantly, she would be out of my hair), I started to tell her just what I thought of her, period.

That's when I remembered one of Mom's favorite, "and the moral of the story is" tale. In this case, the moral of that story would apply more to this stranger than myself, but this woman was a friend of a friend. Did I really want to upset everyone by venting my own aggravation and telling this woman exactly where she could go?

I took a deep breath and calmly asked, "So? Do you like lions?"

The odd question provoked a narrowed eyed suspicious look, but at least it was enough to shut her up until I could drop her off at her destination.

Seems there was once this stuffed lion who wished to come to life.

"Why oh why can't I be real, and be the king of the jungle?" he asked over and over.

Until one day a magic fairy heard him and granted him his wish.

The stuffed lion, instead of sitting atop a little boy's toy box, was suddenly grown, strong and standing

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