"I'm sorry."
"Forgive me."
"Forget it."
Please don't say those things to me. Like the dollar, they have lost their value due to overuse. How happy should I be to hear that you love me when you also love hamburgers, Niagara Falls, pizza, The Three Stooges, your golf buddies, hiking, Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream and the Red Sox?
How convinced am I that you're sorry you hurt me when you are also sorry that your modem is dead, or that you went off your diet or had a flat tire on the way to work, or because you lost your favorite hat or ate the last of the chili, and especially because your cat killed a squirrel before breakfast?
"Forgive me" is what I heard you say to the stranger in the supermarket when your cart hit her heel, and to the clerk at the convenience store when you gave him the wrong credit card, and to the fat guy you accidentally cut ahead of at the checkout in L. L. Bean's last week, so please don't say it to me after you have shattered my heart into a pile of shards. I'll say "forget it," but I promise you--I won't.
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