A dumb kid learning a lesson

During the summer, my friend Tom and I used to camp out in the woods (in a homemade tent) near our parents' houses. Sometimes we would buy supplies for the night from my grandmother's store--usually cream soda, grape soda and "cheezy poofs". Weird combo! One night my brother-in-law was watching the store and he suggested we buy a 6-pack of beer (I was 14) and he would join us later. We packed the bag so the beer was hidden by the soda and poofs. As we were going out the back door, my sister blocked our way. She wanted to look in the bag because "there better not be any beer in there!" I'm not sure what look I had on my face, but it must have been very innocent. As I started to show her what was in the bag I said, "I can't believe you want to...". I didn't get to finish that sentence because my sister started apologizing and asking us if we needed anything else. I was relieved, my "act" had worked out just the way I had hoped. But I had two competing thoughts. The first was--Wow, that was REALLY easy!!! But the second was--I hate this feeling! Technically I didn't lie, but acting innocent to get out of that situation was the same thing. It took me a while to process what had happened. Eventually that 30 seconds helped me to realize that while it can be easy to tell a lie (really, really easy!) and it can appear to be the easy way out of a situation, it's really the hard way out because I had to live with the guilt.

Because of the guilt, my friend and I gave all of the beer to my brother-in-law. And then we went on to prove we could do something really dumb while sober!!! We talked with my B-I-L for quite a while and then he went home and we tried to sleep in the tent. We couldn't. So we walked around the neighborhood (up and down the dirt road and railroad tracks) until we got an idea for a competition. We decided to sit on the front porch of my grandmother's store and see who could sit there the longest when a car was coming and then run out of sight before being seen. He would run left and I would run right. It was after 1:00am, so there were not many cars. The first 4 or 5 cars didn't see us. We were having fun. Then we noticed the lights of car #6. As with the earlier cars, we waited until the last second and then ran. This time Tom wasn't fast enough. He got caught--by the police!!! I was hiding around the corner in bushes. I could hear the officer questioning him about why he was out in the middle of the night and why he was running away from the store. Tom couldn't speak, he was crying too hard. Then I did something sort of strange. I came out of hiding and approached the officer as if I had nothing to fear. I introduced myself. I told him Tom was with me (me the 14 year-old--haha!), that the store belonged to my grandmother, we were camping out, and that Tom ran because we were playing a stupid game to see how long we could wait to run and not be seen by passing cars. It was 100% true, but what police officer would believe it in the middle of the night? For some reason this one did. He believed me!!! He said "Okay, don't do it again" then he got in his cruiser and drove off, leaving us just standing there. I didn't even have to tell him where we lived. We didn't have to wake our parents. I was amazed!

So in one night I learned two lessons: 1) I can't lie because it makes me feel too guilty; and 2) the truth really CAN set you free (if the police officer is nice)!!!! hahaha!