3.25.2006

Panicking never works

I find it strange how one event in day can over shadow almost everything that was good. It started out as a normal Thursday. Rations in the morning, lunch in the soup kitchen, talking with Aurora, waiting for Teen group to start. We were taking a trip to Bald Mountain. A hike up the mountain and back down, easy enough…or is it dramatic music dun dun daahhh). Everything was in order we had drinks we had apples we had the teens we had a van we had keys. We drove to the mountain we ran up…most of the way. It was great. We climbed to the top of the look-out-tower from where I could see my house. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do because we didn’t have a ladder to get us to the first flight of stairs and on top of that some of the stairs are a bit sketchy. I did my Sméagol impression a number of times and Ryan hid in the woods and then jumped out in an attempt to scare Aurora and a couple other people. It was worth the effort. Then we went down the mountain. There was no trouble until we reached the bottom of the mountain. It was a bit of a race. Ryan, Emily, Cody and I were all running down the mountain (not smart in the first place) I was headed straight for the van and I needed to stop. I didn’t want to hit the side of the van with al my weight on the door because then there would be a big dent in it (that may have been a better idea) so I decided to put my hand up and use the window of the van to slow myself down so I didn’t hit the door so hard. Well the window did slow me down for a few seconds and then it shattered. My initial reaction was Oh $@%&#!!! I had never broken a window before in my life ( I actually didn’t think I could with out injuring my hand neither did the guy replacing the window). I can’t remember if I had ever broken someone else’s property before that was this huge, so I panicked (no the best way to handel a situation). I didn’t want the other teens to know that I had broken the window of the van because I thought they would have thought less of me, so I asked the three that were there to lie for me (second bad step). Emily said she couldn’t lie well, so I said don’t say anything. So when Aurora and the other teens came down the mountain and saw what had happened, the story they heard was that the window was already broken when we arrived, so someone may have just decided to break our window because they could. We had a two hour drive back and I was almost holding back tears the whole time. Once we dropped off the last of the teens I told Aurora what actually happened and we headed back to the corps for a Corps Council meeting (so everyone that needed to know was in one place at one time). I told Doug and Deb the actual story (they were obviously not thrilled with the news) and because I laugh so often it sort of seemed like I didn’t realize the seriousness of the situation. I think, at first, I was more disappointed with myself than they were. I was hoping that only the two of them and Aurora would be the only three that knew the actual story, but in a small town the truth gets out fast. Not everyone knows yet but thy will after reading this, and I do need to tell all the teens and apologize to them for lying and asking three of them to lie for me. I guess I just didn’t want to leave Bangor with everyone remembering that I broke a van window, but I am human and as Doug brought out so was David, people don’t remember his faults over the fact that he was an amazing king that’s comforting to know. Someone once said "It's not the making mistakes that we learn from, but how we handel them." Anyone know who that was?? Do you think he broke a window too?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dude, accidents happen. Glass breaks and metal bends, but those things can be fixed. Trust me; somebody once told me, I think it was my mom, destroying things is what I do best.