Life’s Lessons

I remember it as clearly as though it were yesterday.  I was 6 years old.  My sister and I shared a bedroom, and I slept on the top bunk.  We were snug in our beds and tucked in.  Goodnight kisses had been made, and our parents were in the living room watching TV.

I got up to go to the bathroom.  For some reason, in my 6-year-old brain, two cells misfired, and I decided that spraying the entire bathroom with the red can of Avon body spray that my mother had on the back of the toilet was a good idea.  As was dusting the bathroom with the big tub of loose body powder in the matching scent.  I then returned to bed.

Two minutes later, my father entered the room, and asked which one of us had sprayed the bathroom.  My sister answered, “Not me.”  Of course, I also answered, “Not me.”

My very intelligent father (because remember, I was only six – he didn’t turn into an idiot until I was an adolescent and I knew everything – when I was six, he was still a genius) told my sister and I to hold out our hands.  Then he smelled them.  I was busted.

But instead of getting in trouble, I had to get up and follow him to the bathroom to clean my mess.  And he told me, “Don’t ever lie.  Always be proud of what you do and never put yourself into a position where you have to lie.” 

I have tried to live my life by this lesson, these words, this little nugget that was shared with me late one night when I was just 6 years old.

 

Another Life Lesson

Somewhere along the way, I was taught that if you borrow something, return in at least the same condition, if not better, than you borrowed it.  Now technically, I did not borrow the Daddy Caddy.  He borrowed the van.  But, I took it to the car wash, vacuumed it, and washed the windows and dash, even the “Cadillac” decals on the floor that you see when you open the door.  I returned it in better condition than when I received it.

My father, on the other hand, returned the van to me with food all over the floor in the back, and spilled coffee all over the front floor that he didn’t even tell me about.  It wasn’t until I went to work the following day that I smelled coffee.  It reeked.  This is what I saw:

Thanks, Dad.

That afternoon, he called me and left a voicemail.  To tell me that birds had crapped all over the car that I had just washed. 

When I returned his call, I said, “I can’t help that you’re a shit magnet.  But really, I paid the birds to shit on your car to pay you back for the coffee you spilled all over my van.”

Apparently, returning borrowed items in the at least the condition you received them was a life lesson taught to me by my mother.

And in case you’re interested, the “after” picture from last night’s carpet shampooing:

It's clean(er)!