Life Lessons

I'm all about learning from my mistakes. Like last week, when I screamed at Griffin because I thought that a horse was about to kick him in the face. Yes, I learned a valuable lesson about not passing my fears onto my children.

The important part of learning from one's mistakes is to rebound quickly. Admit that you are a whack job, change the whack job behavior, and then let it go.

It got me thinking of the myriad of life lessons that I have learned over the years. A girl like me has had plenty of opportunities to overcome my whack-job-ness. One experience in particular came to mind. I learned a big lesson and I learned it the hard way.

The year was 1985 and it was a hot summer day in Texas. My mother had purchased special movie theatre tickets from our school for a summer film program. Every Wednesday morning we would go to the movies. It was awesome. One set of tickets were for a mystery movie.

The suspense was killing me. I wanted to know what movie would be playing so I sauntered up to the teenager that worked behind the ticket window and casually asked her "What movie is playing today?" She took the bait and said "The Goonies."

My 11 year old heart began to race. The Goonies was not coming out until the end of summer. I was so thrilled to know the mystery movie that I skipped all over the theatre and told every person that I saw that the secret movie of the day was The Goonies. It was my personal mission to inform every person there. I told some teenage boy with acne while he played Pac Man in the lobby. I told a little kid while we were in line for the bathroom. I ran over to a group of girls waiting in line for popcorn and told them. I just loved the thrill of being the first to tell everyone and felt so cool as I fluttered around spreading the news. I announced it to everyone on my row and spread the news down a few rows in front of me. I was on top of the world.

I told people walking down the aisle and I told everyone as they filed into their seats. Finally, the lights dimmed and you could feel the excitement in the air. One little kid actually yelled out at the top of their lungs..."The Goonies!" as the film began to show on the screen. Well, guess what? The secret film was not Goonies. It was...

That's right, The mother flippin' Karate Kid was the mystery movie of the day. That movie had come out the summer before and although we all know it's a great movie ("Sweep the leg Johnny!") it was not new and it was defiantly not The Goonies. People started to boo, a few kids started crying, and all of the people within a few seats of me looked over at me like I was Satan.

I was mortified. I sat throughout the entire movie dreading the walk of shame through the lobby of the theatre. As we exited the theatre, my worst nightmares were actualized. Children pointed at me and scowled. A mom said "Is the the girl that told you?" and gave me the stink eye. Kids were in tears near the concession stand. It was horrible.

When we got in the car my mother handled it in such a loving way. As I slumped down in my seat and hid my face in my hands as to avoid eye contact with any movie goers leaving the parking lot, my mother looked at me in the rear view mirror, smiled, and said

"Well, I guess that you learned not to go around telling everyone everything you know."

That would forever be known as life lesson # 1 and man, it was an important one.