My Favorite Flaw

One of my earliest vivid memories happened when I was in kindergarten. I was dressed in a pink and white striped dress, a matching bow in my perfectly curled hair, and white tights to go over my buckled shoes. If appearances were any indication, one would think that I was a delightful, well-behaved little girl. But as we all know, appearances can be deceiving. This particular day, my class was lining up to go to gym. I straggled behind and ended up near the end of the line. Mrs. Sanford urged us all to stand in a straight line and keep our voices down, but I was only vaguely listening to her. Instead, I was thinking about how thrilling it would be to pick up the kid in front of me and throw him to the ground. Jeff, as he was named, was the runt of the class. He seemed half my size, so that made the temptation more than I could handle. Before I could think any further, I had grabbed him around the middle and pitched him to the floor.

From age five on, I think that I have developed as a trademark the inability to see the end result before I say or do something. When I was 12 years old my aunt informed me that my new motto was going to be, "When in doubt, don't shout it out" after I told her friend's son (who I had known for approximately 30 seconds) that he was ugly and that he needed to change his clothes. That motto has served me well for quite a few years now, but I still frequently find myself saying or doing dumb things that I should know better than to do. You'd think that by a certain age, one would not be so dumb. Unfortunately for me (and for you) I still have that problem quite often.

I guess I will just have to pass it off as a characteristic flaw.