Gossip

There was a little dust-up at the Refuge today.

The youngest child is a special-needs child, both of his birth parents are mentally deficient and he has a problem reading. He's not stupid by any means, but he has a real problem putting letters together to form words.

He is also very social, and all the neighbors know him because he visits them all. He's a good kid, so the neighbors like to have him around. It's a pretty small community, so everyone knows everyone else, so the wife and I have never had any problems with letting him wander.

We recently gained a new neighbor across the street, and the boy being the social creature he is immediately went over and introduced himself. She is an older lady with a couple of dogs and he had a big time playing with the dogs. She had also invited him to go to church with her a couple of times, which he did.

My wife always had a sneaking suspicion that there was something odd with her though, and never trusted her for some reason. Today we found out that we are the target of gossip.

My wife, being my wife, confronted her with it. She is extremely apologetic, she never meant any harm, she was just concerned because he can't read, etc. The wife pointed out that if she was so concerned she would have come and talked to us about it, which she did not.

What she is, is a gossip.

For the most part gossip is malicious and slandering, and nothing good ever comes of it. It creates hard feelings and makes for bad neighbors. It introduces strife into a peaceful community. It hurts the innocent, in this case a ten year old boy.

I really hate gossip.