A couple of simple acts Wednesday reminded me of a sermon I heard recently.

The preacher was expounding on the two basic types of people. To illustrate the point, he used an old saying that is often attributed to Danny Thomas. “There are two kinds of people in the world: givers and takers. The takers may eat better, but the givers sleep better.

Givers don’t always give goods or monetary things. Giving time, hugs and smiles will make the Sandman give you an extra dose of pixie dust. On the other hand, taking can be just as subtle, like a sore loser thinking he was cheated out of something he should have been awarded.

Wednesday started out stressful. The Internet at the office had been taken away and it was giving me fits. Apparently someone had cut a line going into Robertsdale and a good chunk of town was doing without. Century Link said it might be the next day before it was restored.

So I headed to Bay Minette. The Habitat for Humanity ReStore was starting something new – a midweek farmer’s market. As I was interviewing John Stewart about his peaches, he picked up a pair of large fruit and handed them to me. I stuck them in my camera bag and kept going. Later when I was inside talking to the store manager, she noticed the peaches.

“Yea. If I had a bigger bag, I bet they would have given me a watermelon as well,” I joked.

The joke was on me. As I walked back to my car, Robert Hughes of Lottie whistled to get my attention. I looked over and he was bringing me a watermelon. A big watermelon. A watermelon that weighed 24 pounds. (That’s right, I put it on the bathroom scales.)

Neither one of them had to do that, but I could tell it made them feel better. I accepted so I wouldn’t hurt their feelings.

On the other end of the spectrum is the 12-year-old boy who appeared recently on Jeopardy’s Kids Week. I record the quiz show daily to make sure I don’t miss it. One game was a complete runaway. Heading into the final round, one kid had 36,600, the boy in the center had 9,600 and the girl on the right had 1,000. The boy in question was a distant second. There was no way he could overtake the leader who incidentally wagered big and took home $66,600.

The kid in the center knew the answer but misspelled it, writing “Emanciptation Proclamation.” Jeopardy rules state if something is misspelled to the point it changes the pronunciation, it has to be ruled incorrect. It’s the same way if someone adds an extra syllable to a word. They have created a new word and are wrong. So the kid lost the 3,000 he had wagered and ended up with 6,600 to finish in second place.

The show was filmed in February and the contestants signed wavers not to talk about the results until after they aired. When the show did air, the child and his mother quickly spoke up and spoke out to their local newspaper. The mother told the Danbury (Conn.) News Times that her son was stunned by his answer being disqualified and felt embarrassed.

“It was hard to watch,” she admitted.

Instead of teaching her son that life is not always fair, the mother and kid harped about how he should have been given credit for the answer being right. Social media picked up the sour grapes crusade with people saying it was a quiz show, not a spelling bee.

There was even a picture of the kid holding up a piece of paper with the handwritten misspelled answer that cost him $3,000, the caption said. But it didn’t cost him a dime. Only the Jeopardy winners get to keep their money. Second place goes home with $2,000. So it didn’t matter if the kid ended up with 6,600 or 12,600, he was only going home with two grand.

I’m tired of parents and society telling kids that everyone’s a winner because real life doesn’t work that way. Someone wins and someone loses. Rules are rules. And unlike the old saying, there are no exceptions.

William Moore is the Senior Editor at Gulf Coast Newspapers. He can be reached at wmoore@gulfcoastnewspapers.com