A long time ago, I am in the lobby of the building I worked in and my landlord comes up to me. He is a colleague of sorts and works down the hall, but I rent his house. He walks up to me and starts talking about a letter he got from the homeowners’ association, about how they are not happy with the yard, how the grass is too long.
He looks at me and says, “We need to fix this.”
I’m embarrassed, and I start to get light headed. The points of light begin circling in my eyes and my peripheral vision starts to darken and my body flushes and sweat starts streaming down my face and my ribs inside my shirt. I lean over to put my head down, and I suggest that we should sit on that couch over there. The danger passes. We agree to a solution. And then I go get a cold can of pop.
So I know where the Petraeus is coming from. Except of course, I don’t—not even close.
Still, hearing about him under the lights, in front of the grilling and fawning senators, feeling a little thirsty and then everything starting to blur… It makes me remember how ashamed I was that the grass got so long that it took a threatening letter.  And I kind of get dizzy thinking about it and thinking about the general. And I feel for the man, even if I don’t know where he’s coming from.