Mr. McBeevee

I was recently watching an early episode of the Andy Griffeth Show. Opie was just tiny, and he was playing with a beautiful black horse. He kept it tied up just in the front yard by the door. When he described his horse to Barney, Opie had such a detailed description of his horse that Barney couldn’t wait to see it. When Barney went out to look at the horse, he soon learned of Opie’s active imagination. Of course, there was no such horse.

Later that day Opie came to Andy and Barney with an axe he had just received from his new friend, Mr. McBeevee. When asked where he got the axe, Opie gave a detailed description of his new friend and because of the earlier scene, they didn’t believe Opie’s new friend really existed.

Eventually, after a whole episode of funny misunderstandings, Andy decided to talk to Opie about the difference between fact and fiction and tried to make Opie say Mr. McBeevee was just a made-up character in his mind. Opie simply wouldn’t say it because he knew Mr. McBeebee was a real person. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, Andy finally met the real Mr. McBeevee and the whole misunderstanding was solved.

If Andy had just made Opie take him to Mr. McBeebee right away, there would have been no misunderstanding or cause for concern. Instead, they wasted all this time wondering, worrying, concerning themselves with Opie’s so-called, conjured up, fantasy.

The reason the show was funny is because it’s so real to life even all these years later. I think we all are guilty of misunderstandings that could have been solved quickly had we taken the time to simply go straight to the source. In real life, though, it may not be so funny. The longer we wait to get to the heart of the matter, the more misunderstandings, guessing, and assumptions take place, which can eventually lead to hurt.

My regards to Mr. McBeebee, the innocent cause of a big misunderstanding he never knew anything about.