Thursday, July 1, 2010

Things I Wish I Didn't Have

Ugh, God blessed me with an awesome mom. She really is a keeper. (Much love to ya, Mama Crawford!)

Unfortunately, as many of you out there probably know, when you have someone who did a good job raising you, you probably ended up with some character traits you wish you could get rid of. Even just for a day or two.

Like...

A Solid Work Ethic
I have been employed since the day after I turned 14 years old. I have worked at least one job, if not two, at ALL times in my life ever since. I am going on my 13th year in the work force. I have several letters of recommendation that make me sound like the Virgin Mary herself birthed me. I have been offered the job for every position I have ever interviewed for. My yearly reviews have to be filed in a special lead folder, because the golden shine from them is blinding. And in all humility, I am mostly proud of these things. Because I work hard. Really, really hard. And I pour all my energy into it. And God gives me the strength to get through even when I have bosses and coworkers who are, shall we say, "less than desirable".

But seriously, there have been several times in my life when I have looked at people who have crappy work ethics and have found myself very jealous of them. I mean, I desperately want to call in late to work 3 mornings a week. I would love to just show up to work whenever I feel like it. I would really, really, really like to feel okay with only giving 50% on a special project. I wonder what it must feel like to utter the words "Oh well, guess we just won't make the deadline. Ha!"

Sometimes, I really hate the good work ethic my mom instilled in me. Thanks a lot, Crawford! Psh.



Having a Guilty Conscience
Oh my gosh. I never need anyone to accuse me of anything I have ever done wrong, because I am constantly turning myself in before anyone else even has a chance to discover I have done something wrong at all. My guilty conscience is my superhero power (that, and Automatic Exploding Afro). Here are three examples...
     1. I threw a killer house party my senior year of high school when my mom was out of town. I mean, that mess was tri-county! Kids were arrested. Cops came (twice). Beer flowed. Drugs were dropped (although I had no part in this aspect). Entire panels of the fence in our backyard were destroyed. Years later, when my mom tried to sell the house, she was STILL finding beer bottles, condoms (gross people!), and cigarette butts in our back yard. It was epic. Worthy of any '90's movie references you can think of. BUT, when all was said and done, I couldn't even get to sleep that night knowing I had done something so wrong. The guilt was literally eating me up inside (well, the guilt plus the 30 beers I had ingested settling into my under-aged belly). I picked up the phone around 3am or so, called the front desk of the hotel where my mom was staying, and asked to be transferred to her room. With my heart pounding, I gave her the scoop, told her I would be ready for my sentencing when she came home, and that I would have the house cleaned up by the time she got back. In all honesty, I probably could have come up with a cover story, and been able to ellude my mom for years without her finding out. But the guilt would have seriously torn a whole in my brain, and it would have started leaking out in little chunks out of my right ear, and that just insn't a good look for anyone, especially someone with curly hair.


     2. (Oh my gosh, if my dad reads this he might really get mad....sorry dad) So when I was about 9 or so, I spent the weekend with my brother at my grandma's house. My grandma is cool, but there really wasn't ever a lot to do at the house. We had a book of Ronald and Nancy Reagan paper dolls (what the frig, why would these ever be created, ever?). There were approximately 11 kid movies she owned: 10 were Shirley Temple movies, and 1 was "Big Top Pee-Wee" which, if you ask me, really should not have been shown to kids. Sooooo, one day in our boredeom, we found this old Chock Full O' Nuts coffee can filled to the brim with coins, and a bag of coin wrappers sitting on top. Our grandma said we could roll them up in the wrappers if we wanted to. Sweet! Something to do! So my brother and I started counting the coins and placing them in the brown paper coin rollers. (Matt, oh my gosh, do you even remember this?) Well, we got through the entire jar, and let me tell you...it was A LOT of money. (Keep in mind, I was like 9, so the "A LOT" part might be relative.) Anyway, when we were done, my grandma told us to be sure to put the wrapped coins back in the jar, and she would take them to the bank later on and put the money in her account. Well, I figured I deserved a cut of the profits since I did all the labor, so I managed to squirrel away about 8-10 rolls of quarters, which adds up to roughly $80-$100 bucks. There was plenty still left in the jar, so I figured no one would notice.
BUT, I just couldn't bring myself to spend the money. I got home, and thought of alllllll the ways I could spend it.... a new My Little Pony. Some cool new hair scrunchies. I always did want a Bedazzler. I laid in bed at night and dreamt of what I would spend it on. At least, that's what I did for the first night. The rest of the nights, I laid in bed wondering how God was going to punish me. Would it be a huge lightening bolt while I was waiting for our carpool lady to pick us up at school, leaving behind only a smoldering pile of ashes and my gym bag? Perhaps God would bring forth a flood that would only hit my bedroom, sweeping me away in the middle of the night while my family was left dry and un-wrathed upon? The guilt...I could taste it like a mouth full of stolen quarters. I had to make it right. So the following Sunday, I brought the rolls of quarters with me to church. And I put them, all of them, in the gold offering plate. It was the most tainted, but most joyful tithe I have ever given.

3. The third example of my guilty conscience is taking place right now, as I type. I feel sooooooo incredibly badly for typing this blog while I'm at work, that I think I am going to have to stay an extra hour just so I can balance out my timesheet and not feel badly at the end of the month when I fill out my hours. (Wow, I'm combining A Solid Work Ethic AND A Guilty Conscience in this one...not too shabby.)

Just once, I would like to do something bad and not have pangs of guilt so badly that I think I am having a heart attack at the age of 27.


What about you guys out there? Have anything  your parents instilled in you that you wish you could get rid of every so often?


Cellulite and Tell You Right,
Andy

2 comments:

  1. I am so happy you're blogging again. I love your writing.

    Now use that solid work ethic to apply here, too, so we don't have to wait months on end to read more great stuff!

    Oh, and I wish I didn't need to eat chocolate, drink wine and be doing something productive.

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  2. Good to read!

    -Topher

    ReplyDelete