I broke a rule today. Or at least I laughed while my Mom broke it, which amounts to the same thing, because it was one of those all-important mommy-rules: Do Not Give Children Under One Year of Age Chocolate. (It ranks right up there with oldies but goodies like Change Babies' Diapers Semi-Daily, and Do Not Allow Your Four-Year-Old to Carry the Baby Down the Stairs--neither of which I have lapsed in observing, to my parental credit.)
Whooo Baby! Are we going to pay for this one, or what? (But look at that bliss on his little face. Who can deny a face like that the joy of chocolate?)
Breaking that rule made me think about when I was a teenager. Remember when you were young, and adults would start spouting off their accumulated wisdom--sort of like a whale does with its spray when it surfaces to breathe? It can't help it, that's part of its life; just a whale being a whale. It's exactly like that--the whole adults and spontaneous outpourings of wisdom thing, I mean. You'd be sitting there innocently in your Mia Maid class when BAM!!! Sister Whosit (a really lovely person in retrospect, now that you are about the age she was when you were sitting in class, and these days you totally get what she meant) would start crying and telling about something she had done and how it had affected her, and she'd finish it up by saying, "just be smarter than I was, and don't make the mistakes I did." Seriously--just like whales spouting, because I've been whale watching, and that's all you see--if you're lucky, and I'm pretty slow to react, too, so I only saw the tail-end of the spray after everyone else on the boat had OOOHed and AAAAHed. That's what it was like to sit in those classes; everyone else would get it, and I'd only hear the last couple of sentences or so. They never made sense. "She's sorry she did what?" I'd be thinking. "Did I miss a really juicy story? Is there going to be a quiz on this later? Is this going to affect my Personal Progress completion?" And somehow the painfully accumulated wisdom (I'm assuming it was painfully accumulated since they cried so much about it) passed somewhere over my head or between my ears, and never quite penetrated the thick layer of inattentiveness I tended to cultivate as a teen.
[Short note to all who care about the English language: yes, I do intend to continue slaughtering it in this fashion. I do know what a run-on sentence is, but since I passed my ACT with a darn good score in English I feel free to take creative license now and again. It's my reward for actually listening occasionally in High School. It never helped with my social life, but BOY does it pay off now!]
Anyway, back to accumulated wisdom. It seems to me there were quite a few things we were warned not to do lest dire and tragic things happen in consequence. [See, all you still-reading English-loving-type people, that was a beautifully balanced and executed sentence. Take that all you who thought my triumph in winning the 8th-grade English award was a fluke!] I never did any of the BIG ONES--never fooled around, never broke the Word of Wisdom, always told the truth in interviews with Priesthood leaders both ward and stake. I was always too afraid of the dire consequences foretold to try anything with possibly long-lasting results. But I was still a rebel in my own very small way.
There was, for instance, the Pink Hair Incident of 1987. (Let me tell you: when the box of rinse-out red dye says not to use on blond hair BELIEVE IT!) Ummmmmmm, there was . . . nope, that's it. My one small rebellion was dying my hair an unnatural shade of red for Halloween, and paying for it for two months of increasingly unlovely pink hair with rodent-colored roots. (Because I wasn't smart enough just to permanently re-dye my hair back to its original shade. Rebellion makes people stupid; my sophomore-year pictures are the proof.)
It wasn't until I grew old enough to really spread my wings that I defied all the semi-important wisdom of the ages. And through the miracle of survival I now have my own store of accumulated wisdom which I am willing to force upon you.
If you get to attend college, use your time wisely. Teachers do not give credit for work missed because you were busy trying to convince "Mr. Right" that your name is "Ms. Right-for-him."
On a related note: if you decide during your college days to ascend Mt. Timpanogos do not wear your roommate's two-sizes-too-small shoes, watch your tongue when the ice-shelf collapses under you and you plunge twenty feet to almost certain death--swear words echo longer than regular ones, and if a guy tries repeatedly to help you on the climb and you refuse his aid it's almost certain that he liked you until that moment and now finds you insufferably pig-headed.
Don't get married without dating the guy you intend to wed. Blew that one out of the water. Note to future un-dating brides: a shared month-long trip to Europe does not count the same as a year's worth of dates. Especially if the guy had no idea you existed during the trip. (Thankfully neither of us likes to admit mistakes, so we keep plugging away. Eleven years of joy, and counting!)
When you move out on your own, make sure your job pays enough to allow you to use a laundromat, because otherwise your arms will get really tired and your bathroom will always be full of dripping clothes.
Consult a map and a neighbor after moving into a new apartment and before setting off on foot to the grocery store. There are no groceries in the direction you intended to take.
Cute wooden clogs from Holland are great Halloween costume-wear. But if you have to take the Freeway from Heck to get to the party wear sneakers until you actually arrive at your destination.
Do not attempt to drive a friend home at two a.m. the night after your sister gave you a five-minute lesson on using a stick shift. The police may seem kind and understanding when they pull your sobbing tush over, but they will be laughing at you the entire time they are following behind to make sure you arrive safely.
And last: if you are waiting for a BYU Devotional, and you arrive two hours early because the Prophet is scheduled to speak, do not pull out your figure-drawing homework to pass the time. Those around you will be neither amused nor edified by the semi-nude figures which you are sketching.
Thank you. You may return to your regularly-scheduled inattentiveness now.
No comments:
Post a Comment