Hey, remember the playground rules?
We’ve all been schooled at the
”
Do Unto Others
”
school, since we were kids. All of that
”
schooling
”
had stuck and I’d taken it pretty literally, I found out. Like
most people, I try to live my life by that basic rule, for the most
part. Usually, it’s easy; something I can do without even thinking
about it. Other times, I’ve found myself wondering why I
bothered.
Hey, remember the playground rules?
We’ve all been schooled at the “Do Unto Others” school, since we were kids. All of that “schooling” had stuck and I’d taken it pretty literally, I found out. Like most people, I try to live my life by that basic rule, for the most part. Usually, it’s easy; something I can do without even thinking about it. Other times, I’ve found myself wondering why I bothered.
It’s not easy to admit when you make a mistake, but if you’re a parent, it’s amplified even more by the fact that you have to be a “good example for the kids.” Especially, when one of them is in the back seat of the car when you accidentally back into another car while pulling out of a tight parking spot at daycare at the end of a very long day that just got a little longer.
Okay, so my parenting skills were a little lax when I might have said a four-letter word, feeling the resistance when I couldn’t back up anymore.
Looking in the rear view, I wondered where that empty truck had materialized from in the last two seconds.
To make matters worse, the parking lot was full of walking kids and parents, also known as witnesses, as they all migrated to their cars. Not that that really mattered except for the embarrassment I felt for having people actually see me do something so idiotic.
I hopped out of the car and walked towards the back. Whew, no damage. I checked out the front bumper of the truck I hadn’t seen before until now. It looked OK. Normal wear and tear, I thought, but I wanted to make sure that the owner agreed with that assessment. I waited for them to come out. I waited some more. After what seemed like a long time, but was probably only three minutes, I went into the daycare center that I had been dropping The Boy off at since he was a year and a half old, and asked one of the teachers if she happened to know the owner of the truck. Ms. Lupe said that the owner had just picked up her child and would be coming out shortly.
I walked back outside and waited some more. I was beginning to get annoyed. I was mad at myself for having made such a stupid mistake and also that this woman was taking an inordinately long time in coming outside so I could explain my stupid mistake to her and hoped that she wouldn’t be too mad. She couldn’t be, I reasoned, since there didn’t seem to be any damage.
When she finally emerged, I began apologizing profusely. I explained what had happened and that I wanted her to come and look at her car. She was understandably displeased but a strange thing happened inside me, though, when I saw that wasn’t buying my apology. I began to get angry. Wait, I apologized. That should make it all better, right? Isn’t that what we were all told as kids? Wasn’t that pounded into our thick little skulls on the playground?
“Apologize to Timmy for hitting him and it’ll be all better.”
The woman surveyed her car and wanted to know why I’d had such a hard time backing up.
It was an accident. I’m sorry! Just look at the bumper and tell me what you think …
“You dented my license plate,” she said flatly.
I felt my eyebrows go up. “I did? I’m really sorry.” She looked so irritated with me that all I wanted to do was escape.
Hey, I’d done the right thing, here. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. I got back into my car, bewildered. I was having trouble understanding why since there was no real damage, it was such an egregious mistake. Maybe her day had been even longer than mine and I wasn’t helping matters. And this wasn’t the playground.
The Boy noticed my dismay and said, “Don’t worry, mom. I think you did the right thing.”
Real mission, accomplished.
