Consequences

I almost feel like apologizing for writing about things that happened to me so long ago. I guess they are still very vivid, and emerge as somehow being pertinent to the topic, perhaps.

Back in those days, when I was maybe five years old, there was an ice cream man that came down our street in his white truck in the summer. I remember one time, my cousin Lindy was coming over to visit with her family. The ice cream man could be heard coming along before Lindy’s family had arrived, and my parents gave me two nickels and a dime (I think) so that I could get something for her and something for me.

I was warned to be careful, and not to lose any of the coins, or I would not have enough. I heard that instruction clearly, kept mulling it over in my mind, certain that I would never lose any of the coins. 

I carefully crossed the street in front of our little house to wait for the ice cream truck on the other side. Then, for some perverse reason, I began to toss one of the coins in the air. I dropped it, and it suddenly vanished. I thought surely I would find it easily, but I could not. It was not on the sidewalk; I could not see it in the grass. I panicked. Just then, the ice cream man pulled up to the curb.

You might picture the ice cream man as a jovial, slightly overweight fellow. Well, this guy was not. He was old, thin, wore a rather uptight ice cream man suit, and did not smile. Distraught, I tried to explain to him that I had lost one of my coins, but that my cousin was coming, and could I please just get two ice cream bars with the money I had? He was completely unsympathetic, even to such a nice little girl.

I am actually not sure what happened after that. I like to finish it out in my mind that I got a popsicle, the kind with two sticks, and that my mom broke it in half and we shared. I think that’s how it went. But I remember that my parents also were not sympathetic. After all, they had warned me, and I had not listened.

I mean, I heard them, but didn’t listen, didn’t heed their advice, didn’t take the warning seriously. I was careless, even prideful, thinking I had it all under control—until I didn’t.

But I was just a dumb kid--or was I? I knew what I was doing, or so I thought, and I messed up. Even at such a young age, and even though I was pretty "good," I still had faults.  One minute I was on top of the world, carefree, and well, careless. The next minute I was brought back down to earth, humbled. 

It was my fault, but, it was also just a thing that happens. A silly little kid can be a silly little kid, and really, we love silly little kids. But there are always problems in life. This is an example of a very small one.  The world is broken. We are broken. We are never really on top of the world. We are always about to fall, whether it is our fault or not.

Losing the coin wasn’t malicious, and I didn’t really suffer much for it. But I did learn something, and I still remember it all these years later. I learned that I should listen to warnings, heed advice from those wiser than me, and I learned to believe in consequences.