Sometimes I do something a little odd, then notice that someone else has noticed.

So I think, “I really ought to explain that,” but decide it doesn’t matter enough to waste the time and energy which launching into an explanation would entail.

For instance, I went out to eat the other day with an associate I like a lot but don’t know that well. As we took a last sip of tea and tucked the tip under the sugar bowl and gathered our purses, I grabbed up my barely-used napkin as well as an extra one that the waitress had set in the middle of the table and put them in my purse.

Carol noticed, but being a really nice person, didn’t say a thing. Of course. One doesn’t point out the peculiarities of the person with whom one has just dined.

I started to mention that we have two chickens and a rooster who saunter into the garage whenever they feel so moved — and as they mosey about, they leave ample evidence of their passing.

Then here come my husband and a passel of dogs, squishing right through the mess and tromping traces into my house — which, before long, is going to smell exactly like a chicken coop.

So almost every time I head through the garage myself, I keep an eye out for fresh deposits and whisk them up with a napkin or paper towel of which I keep a stash in a basket on one of the work shelves.

This isn’t exactly luncheon talk, so I just skipped it and let Carol make what she wanted to of my miserly tidiness.

“Never explain or say you’re sorry.” That’s a line I ran across the other day. I’ve been chewing it over all week long. Sure goes against the grain of almost everything we’ve been told.

There’s your mom insisting you say “I’m sorry” every time the wrestling match got carried away and your little brother ended up with a bloody nose.

There’s Jesus saying “Make it right” with anyone you’ve hurt or offended before you go to the altar of God.

The older I get, the more I get what He was talking about. For one thing, this precious life is so darn short, there’s no time to waste on pride.

But I also get the drift of that guy’s thought, the one who said to can the explanations and the sorry sorry’s. He means: Don’t whine! Don’t bore folks with long explanations and exculpations, trying to free yourself from blame.

Just get the job done best you can and cut the you know what.

There is, of course, a time for heartfelt apologies. To the kid left waiting at the curb. To the friend you wounded with an unkind barb.

Still, I think I’m sorrier for the things I didn’t do than the ones I did. And for the things I didn’t say.

Like that time my mom was dying in the hospital with a windowful of flowers. My big, store-bought bouquet. And my Aunt Sally’s delicate buds formed into a golden globe by a professional florist.

Between them leaned a rose in a jar half filled with water, which my brother Adam must have plucked from some friend’s yard.

This was a bad time in my brother’s life, physically, emotionally, financially. He died himself just one year later. I know he wished he could have marched in with a magnificent spray of blossoms for the mom he loved as much as I did, maybe more.

The room was full of visitors, and somebody mentioned how pretty all those flowers were. Look at that perfect posy! And those so and so’s!

Then there was one of those peculiar silences. All eyes focused on that lopsided rose in its condiment jar. No one said a word.

My brother stood as straight as an arrow, but I knew he writhed within. I started to pipe up with something like “The sweetest gifts are always the homemade ones!” Just didn’t think fast enough, and the conversation drifted on to something else. Still, I ached inside.

But not as much as I have ached since I lost him. It’s too late to tell Adam that I brought that jar home. That I pull it out every now and then and stick “homemade” flowers from my yard into it.

That I have no vase I treasure above the crummy one he used — because he cared more about our mother than he did about looking small and ridiculous in the eyes of the world.

Yes, it’s the I’m sorry’s and the I love you’s that you did not make that haunt you.

(Ryland Bruhwiler lives on a farm in McNairy County, Tenn. A special columnist for the Daily Corinthian, her column appears Saturday. She can be contacted by email at downyonder@wildblue.net.)