Where's the beef?

“I ordered the beef.”

“I’m sorry ma’am, all we have left is the fish.”

Have you ever sat down at a wedding or some other type of banquet and run into this exact scenario? How did it make you feel? Disappointed? Frustrated? Angry?

I experienced the same sort of thing when I purchased a book by an author I’ve grown to love, only to learn the book is a far cry from her others. Unexpected. Not what I’d hoped.

Now that I’m starting to meet authors of all kinds, I’m reminded of my days as a waitress. Before I waited tables, I could be very hard on someone who failed to perform as I thought she should. After “walking a mile” so to speak, I began to understand that a waitress is one member of the restaurant staff, and sometimes things happen beyond her control. As a result, I’m more forgiving these days.

Can we apply this to authors? Maybe. Don’t like the ending? Maybe she had two weeks to write it because of a death in the family and an unforgiving deadline. Don’t like the title? She may not have chosen it. Is the book a complete departure from her other books? Maybe she wanted to experiment before she carved out a rut so deep she could never veer off course for the rest of her career.

Look at poor Arthur Conan Doyle. He tried killing off Sherlock Holmes several times, but his fans forced him to resurrect the character. He wanted to pursue historical novels, but the public wanted him to stay in his "box."

I don’t advocate reading a book you don’t enjoy. Life is too short. But I’m starting to see that life throws us all crazy circumstances and reading a book that is different from what you expected can sometimes give us the gift of something fresh.

I’m just saying you might like the fish, but you’ll never know if you keep complaining about the beef you thought you wanted.