Part 12: Kindness

Kindness

            Thinking of a particularly exciting memory of kindness is sort of like trying to think of the most exciting dictionary entry you’ve ever read. Kindness is naturally pretty boring, unless it involves presenting an oversized check to a mass of people.[1] I, of course, only use oversized checks to pay rent. The landlord thinks it’s hilarious.

            Living life as an unadventurous kid afraid of confrontation, kindness was a big part of my arsenal of attributes. The bully rarely fights the kid who brings in snacks for his fellow classmates. Because yes Mrs. K, I DID bring in enough for the rest of the class. Not exactly out of kindness, but if a teacher is going to tell you that something is against the rules because you didn’t bring enough in for everybody, you better believe the next day the class is getting a treat. Take note young nerds, snacks plus spite equals kindness.

            My kindness as a child was often the result of being nice relative to those around me, because children are monsters.[2] One day two friends were coming over to my house to play. I do not know how the time or place was arranged. I assume our parents travelled into the future and used their cell phones to make some calls.[3] My one friend, let’s call him Steve, because I don’t remember who it was and I’m not good at making up names (sorry future wife), showed up first and had a really great idea:

Let’s hide in the tree and throw pine cones at other Steve when he gets here.[4]

            I had several feelings about this plan. First, I love being in trees, this is going to be great. Second, why would we do that to other Steve? He’s an ok human person, probably my second favorite Steve. Third, I only have willow trees in my yard, where are we getting pine cones? The third point was irrelevant, we were outside and this was the nineties, there were pine cones everywhere. This was before we knew pine cones were bad for us. For the second point, I waited to voice my concern until we were already up in that tree because, well, I love being in trees!

            Once we were up there, and I had found a nice branch to lounge on, I let Steve know I wasn’t 100% on board with operation throw objects at our friend. This is me being kind to other Steve. Also at the same time, I wanted to be kind to first Steve, so we totally threw those pine cones at other Steve. He did not like it. I know he didn’t like it because he screamed at us and ran home. Classic other Steve. This is where I need to wrap the story up in a nice little kindness bow. I convinced first Steve that we needed to go apologize, and then all hang out and do whatever other Steve wanted to do for the day. We apologized profusely and he decided he  wanted to play “run through the yard and see if you can outrun my mean dog before it gets you.”[5] Out of anger he suggested the game, out of kindness, we played.

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[1] Who uses checks anymore?

[2] They should check under their beds for themselves! Boom, roasted.

[3] They couldn’t use a landline because it was tied up by AOL.

[4] Sorry, the creative side of my brain thinks all boys are named Steve.

[5] This is a real game we played. I can’t remember if it was out of revenge, but I do remember it being exhilarating.