Context is Everything:The Parable of Pill and Pal

I woke up in the night with this parable in my head. It is all about context.
"Pill and Pal are scientists with offices at the opposite ends of a long hallway. They have collaborated on a couple of projects but try not to anymore because they can't seem to communicate. Recently they had a big blow-up that has not helped.
Pill is in the middle of a very big project. He has stayed up for two nights in a row monitoring reactions and recording data. He couldn't really ask Lab Rat to do that for him since there ARE labour laws after all. So he is tired, very tired.
Also, he is running through the funding really fast and has had to spend his own money on such things as beakers and test tubes, so that is making him feel stressed. While Pill is out for supper, Lab Rat, who is finished working, gets a small poker game going in the lab, inviting Barney from across the hall and Pal. While they are playing, Lab Rat's wife drops in with their child and while they talk the child inadvertantly knocks a rack full of test tubes onto the floor. They all stare at it. Wifey thinks Lab Rat has more time to clean it up than she does and leaves. Lab Rat, Barney and Pal think it can wait until after the game, or maybe the janitor can come in later and clean it up.
That's the situation.
Pill re-enters and sees the mess on the floor. "What happened?" he asks. The others are very focused since Barney is about to collect the whole pot. So Pill asks again. Lab Rat holds up his hand in a "just wait" motion. Losing patience, Pill tells them the game is over, they have to help clean up the mess (it is partly under their feet, broken glass and test tubes mixed up together). The others start to stand up but Pal says, "I may be missing something here but I don't see how it is so important to do this right this minute. Like what is so important about a few test tubes?"
Pill loses it here and becomes a genuine pill. He yells at Pal, "It's important because it's important to me! That should be enough, it is important to me, okay?!" He really is yelling and his face is white.
Barney pipes up here with, "Whoa, Pill, wait a minute. I don't think Pal meant anything!" They have a little exchange while Pal escapes down the hall to his own lab. Lab Rat, Pill and Barney clean up the mess in silence. Pill thinks about it and feels bad for over reacting. He knows it was all about his fatigue, worry about money, and feeling important. There is nothing like having people ignore you and try to brush it off when you are upset to make you feel unimportant. But he knows that Pal does not understand his context. He goes down the hall to apologize.

Context is a trigger for much of what we do. To ignore context is to ignore a part of reality that hugely influences how we will act and react. To ignore context means that we have little basis for judging anything.

Stephen Covey (in one of his books, I don't know which one) tells a story of a man getting on a Transit Bus in New York City with his children. He sits down and immediately puts his head in his hands, ignoring the children. The kids create mayhem, running up and down the aisle, wrestling with each other, knocking into the other passengers and grabbing things. The passengers are tisking, rolling their eyes, and in every way possible, indicating their annoyance. Finally one gets up and taps the man on the shoulder. "Buddy," he says, "you should control your children. They are bothering everyone." The man slowly looks up and then says, "Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. They're a little upset. We just came from the hospital. My wife just died." Suddenly the other passengers on the bus have a huge paradigm shift. Knowing the context has changed everything.

Those RCMP officers at Vancouver airport had a huge context that influenced them. The fact that four officers were sent to control a "violent" man scared them. He had to be violent, right, or they wouldn't send four guys to control him. They didn't want to get hurt and decided they would just tazer the guy - without seeing him or doing any assessment. Of course they did.
The Polish guy had just completed a TransAtlantic flight, had not slept in 36 hours, had eaten very little in all that time; his mother had told him to remain in the baggage area and she would find him there, the airport officials would not let her go to the baggage area; the guy could understand no English; and he was at his wits end (meaning crazy) from waiting in there for 10 hours; he didn't know what to do. When the RCMP told him to put down the stapler (he didn't understand) he yelled at them. Of course he did. So they tazered him. Of course they did. It was all about context. If they had taken time to figure out the context maybe the outcome would have been different.

Back to Pill and Pal. What do you think Pal did and/or what should he do when Pill comes to apologize?
a. ignore Pill and not say anything.
b. say, "That's okay, tell me why it was so important? I really want to hear about it." (find out more about the context)
c. say, "I don't care about your context. You're a real pill and you always yell at me, so we aren't pals," and then turn away.
d. say, "I'm sorry, I can be a pill too sometimes, when I'm in a certain context, and I don't remember ever trying to apologize. So I appreciate you coming to apologize to me. If I was insensitive to your situation, I apologize too. (show charity.)

I vote for b. and d. However, that hardly ever happens. Mostly we only care about our own context. That is the challenge of communication and relationships. I guess the issue when choosing our response is, how much do we care about our relationships? Do we care about our relationships enough to show some charity and then forgive, and I mean, really forgive.