This one’s another one of those topics that probably wouldn’t apply to everyone, but I can make it work for me, I think.

Did you ever fall through ice?

This is a very scary question. Like falling through ice wouldn’t be the absolute worst thing ever. There is a lady who used to write stories for the newspaper whose son fell through ice and died when he was about 12. He was away from home, visiting his grandparents, I believe. That is what I think of when I think of falling through ice.

I did fall through ice once, but really only up to my ankle. Not really much of a fall. This was at my grandparents’ house in Stilwell. Grandma and Grandpa had a pond at their place, and their cows would drink from it. There were really two ponds, but one was, in my mind, the main pond. It was closer to the house and the road and therefore it was easier to remember it existed. One time we were there and it was iced over. Marissa and I went down there with our cousin Grant, and maybe his sister Kristin, to see it.

We stood on the iced over edge of the pond. Very slippery. Very neat.

Grant stomped through the ice. Marissa and I were impressed. I tried to stomp through, but couldn’t, because I wasn’t confident in the grip of my other tennis shoe. Marissa and I continued to inch our way along the slippery ice. Grant continued to stomp holes. I took one little step and splashed through to the ice. Yuck. The water was cold and wet and dirty.

I lost interest in the iced over pond, and we trudged back to the house to sit by the wood burning stove and play with Grandma’s dominoes and cards that she kept in the drawer in the coffee table.

I didn’t like to play dominoes or cards, but I liked to make little houses and buildings with them. I also liked to peruse the big book Grandma had that was published by the Tulsa World and included pages from all of their most important headlines over the years. I would frighten myself by reading the stories of the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders again and again, until I could barely be alone outside without constantly looking over my shoulder.

My experience was commonplace, and kind of fun to remember. It’s much different than my friend’s experience. I can’t even think about the pain of losing a child. When my mind even flits close to the idea, like it is now, a knot in the pit of my stomach forms. I had to put a story about my friend’s son in the paper. I had to do that many times when children in our community died. I still remember each one of them.

To lose a child…Marissa says that if she lost Sarah, she would have to kill herself. I don’t think I would do that, even though how could you want to live anymore?

This is getting awful, and morbid, and I’m feeling kind of sickly, and I’m not going to think about it anymore. I’m going to get off this computer, and go in there and give each of my children and kiss and a hug, and say a prayer of thanksgiving for the blessings that they are.

Thank you angelfire journal topics page for this delightful romp down memory lane with your number 8. Ha ha.

I have been thinking on this one since the big birthday break yesterday. I actually thought I might journal after all yesterday, but one look at this convinced me it wasn’t a good idea.

Today’s topic is:

Write about an enemy who eventually became your friend.

Seriously? I don’t even know where to begin on this one. I am actually going to take a few minutes and lay down my head and think about this. Belinda’s napping; Lenora’s on the computer upstairs; Bennett is hiding out so I don’t make him clean something. It’s an opportune time.

Okay. That worked. I actually thought of someone who would fit the bill. I’m astonished that I did – I wouldn’t have never thought I had anyone in my life that started out as an enemy and ended up as a friend.

Enemy is kind of a strong word. Nemesis is better.

The year was 1988, and I was a geeky kid with glasses and a perm that wouldn’t quit. It was the first day of high school, and bad news was afoot. Instead of going to the band room, we were told to go straight to the library. There, we would meet the new band director.

His name was John P., and he quickly became one of my least favorite people. I don’t remember all the details, but I do know that he was always joking with me…and I didn’t think it was very funny. He called me “Frizz” in reference to my hair. He singled me out and insisted that I play loud. He was loud and in-your-face and a real pain, if you asked me. I was always ready to talk about how much I couldn’t stand Mr. P., crack jokes about him, or whatever else derogatory thought came to mind.

But something happened. Again, I don’t remember the details, and that is a shame. But I started to not only like Mr. P., I started to adore him.

Probably a lot of it started when the two seniors graduated, and I was suddenly first chair. The music was fun, and there were solos sometimes. Mr. P. didn’t like the tone of my ligature, so he bought me a new one. I didn’t have to pay him back. I still have it. The jokes that used to annoy me so much started to get funnier and funnier. For him, I learned to play my clarinet loud, but still stay somewhat in tune, for marching band. For him, I lifted the bell of the clarinet up high, even though none of the others did. For him I practiced my solos at home. For him I remembered to wear black socks.

Liking Mr. P. was part of a metamorphasis I went through during my first years of high school. I went from a person who didn’t fit in anywhere to someone who had friends and enjoyed school and the social life it entailed. My best friends were my band crowd. We would ride together to ball games, sit together at lunch time, and complain together at early band practice. Somehow while I was rediscovering myself, I also knocked the chip off my shoulder that made me dislike John P.

In later years, some other kids in band got mad at Mr. P.; most of them quit band over it after I graduated. I was glad that I was gone for that, because I could not have quit band when I loved it, and my director, so much. It was a father-worship type relationship for me in a way, I guess.

He didn’t teach band many years at Tuttle; I think it was over whatever it was that got everyone mad at him. He taught vocal after that, and sometimes I would see him when I would go visit my sister Karlene at the school. He loved to tell people how I called him on his birthday one year when he wasn’t home. It was in the summertime – June, if memory serves. I left a message on his answering machine, telling him happy birthday and reminding him that it was also the birthday of my dog, Corky.

Then I got a good idea. I called all of my friends and asked them to wish him a happy birthday.

Mr. P. said that when he got home, the answering machine was full of kids calling to tell him happy birthday.

When he told me about it as an adult, I had sort of forgotten about the whole thing. But I love thinking about it now. I remember now that all of my friends didn’t want to do it. Why on earth did I want them to call the band director and leave a message on his answering machine? But I pleaded and they did it – probably to get me to leave them alone. I told them it would be funny. I also thought that it would mean a lot to him – that his students thought enough about him to think about him in the summertime and call him on his birthday.

It must have meant something to him, since he was talking about it a decade later.

When I think back on the whole thing, I can’t believe that there was ever a time I didn’t care about John P. I don’t feel like I am the same person who didn’t like him. It makes me wonder how different my life could have turned out if I hadn’t made the transformation I made in high school, or if some of my choices had been different. I’m glad I turned out the way I did. 🙂

I may take tomorrow off, as a birthday present to myself. For now, I’ll… Describe a great fort you built or a great game you played as a child.

Okay. The absolute best place I had as a child was my little playhouse. But it wasn’t a built playhouse of wood or anything; it was a little place in the trees.

In our yard, there was a big, big pine tree. It was surrounded by one medium sized mulberry tree and a bunch of smaller mulberry trees. To the south of the whole thing was a forsythia bush.

At some point, the big pine died and my dad cut it down.

Some time later, I was checking it out and discovered that there was a whole little area you could go inside to play.

This is really hard to describe, so I went ahead and drew a (bad) picture of it in paint…just to help you get the idea.

Okay. So the right is south. The green blob with the yellow dots is the forsythia bush. The olive parts are the mulberry trees. The one with the maroon dots is the medium mulberry tree that actually produced something. The brown blob is the stump.

My fascination with the playhouse began when I found it, and then found a penny half buried in the dirt. When I went to pick it up, I found another penny! I dug in the dirt. There were literally hundreds of pennies out there! No one in the family claimed to know the origin of the pennies, and my mind raced at the possibilities. (Of course, Marissa later admitted to having taking the pennies from our dad’s big Mr. Magoo bank and burying them out there.) But at the time, it was a mystery, and a profitable one at that. I spent the rest of the day (and probably the week) digging up pennies.

While in the comfortable shade of the forsythia, I started to see how delightful a play place it was, and I began making improvements. Upon first discovery, the forsythia filled up most of the open space between itself and the mulberry area. You really had to hunker down or crawl in there, and I was a little kid. I got some strong twine from the shed and used it to tie the forsythia back. The chain link fence was right behind it, and I tied the twine to the fence, then wrapped it around the bush to the fence on the other side. I pulled and pulled, and the forsythia raised up higher and higher. I stopped when an adult could walk there, but the forsythia branches still offered a canopy overhead. It was like a little roof! Streams of sunlight shone through, but it was still nice and shady, with pretty green leaves and little yellow flowers overhead. I took the old picnic table bench out of the yard and placed it underneath the canopy. Nice!

Using Mom’s good rose cutters without permission, I cut back any mulberry branches that were in my way. There were a couple in the path, and I cut them to the ground. I also cut back the viny thorn thing that would be my constant roommate in the playhouse. I could cut him, but he kept growing back. I knew the area to avoid though.

I also tied back the mulberry trees, gathering them together to ensure maximum usability of the playhouse. I used old wire hangers, opened up, to bind the trees to each other.

Pilfering from Mom’s storage in the shed, I continued to decorate the playhouse with end tables, chairs, wooden pictures, and anything else that caught my eye. I also hung delightful crochet chains that I had made myself from the branches,

When I was done, it was a sight to behold. A real playhouse! I had really made myself a real playhouse! My family was invited to a housewarming. They liked it, but Mom said I had to put some of the stuff back. So I did. I was allowed the picnic table bench, some metal folding chairs, a beat up metal and wood chair, and the worst of the wooden pictures. But that was quite all right. It was still a great place.

Such a great place, in fact, that the playhouse and I remained close throughout my high school years. I would tie it back again each summer, and at one point I even was able to put some old scrap carpet in there, which held up better than you’d think. I’d take my CD player out there and run an extension cord back to the house, and listen to music and read or just think about stuff. If the music wasn’t loud, or I didn’t have the CD player out there or something, sometimes people would look for me and not be able to find me. I remember family members coming out and calling me, and I would be able to see them from within my house of leaves, and they wouldn’t be able to see me. It was grand.

The playhouse is gone now. It was there for a long time – I even got to show it to Ben – but now it is only in my memory. I wish it was still there so I could show it to the kids. I know they’d love it. I also wish there was some kind of amazing place like that here for them to play with, but there’s nothing even close.

Well, they could probably hide behind some of the weeds we have growing in the yard, but that’s not quite the same thing!

Okay. I’m officially sick of journaling. Maybe I’ll take weekends off. Too bad it’s only Tuesday.

Write about a babysitting experience.

The first thing that popped in my mind when I saw this was the time I was babysitting two children who lived down the road from me. I was probably about 14 – I know I rode my bike there. Anyway, long story short, I made a judgement mistake and ended up doing something that I still wish I hadn’t. I can still feel the shame I felt when it all became clear that it had been the wrong choice.

Matter of fact, the shame is still so strong that I don’t even want to go into it here. And that’s probably a bad thing. Isn’t the point of a journal to bare the soul and get it all out?

After all, there are lots and lots of other babysitting experiences to document. I remember watching the toddlers at church. A little one was crying, and another teenager in there blew on his tummy to make him laugh. When she had to leave later, I tried it and he became hysterical. I felt so dumb and awkward.

I used to babysit Krislyn and Kevin all the time. One time I took them to Minco to play on the toys at Bill Johnson Park. I turned my back for literally one second and somehow Kevin morphed to the top of the giant slide. He was like two years old. I ran in slow motion to the slide, holding my hand out – “Keeeevvviiinnnn….nnnnoooooooo” – and he looked at me and fell over the side.

And I just knew when I got to him his skull was going to be cracked open and there was going to brain showing or something terrible like that but he was still intact and he cried but it was okay. I told Karlene all about it…on Kevin’s high school graduation day. At the time, I only told her that he had a little fall but seemed okay. I didn’t want to not be trusted with them anymore.

I also spent a school year babysitting two great boys every day after school. Best memories? Playing Castlevania on the old-school Nintendo with all the cheat codes and screaming when the final bad guy appeared, and the boys throwing popcorn at the television and shouting insults at Ranger Rick, the afternoon kids’ club host at the time. Worst memory? Allowing the older boy to ride on the back of my car (they lived in a tiny, hardly populated addition and I was going slow, but still), where he slid off and hit the gravel hard.

There’s also the time that Ben and I kept Krislyn, Kevin and Gary while Karlene and James were in Branson or something. Gary was very small…three months old or less. Ben and I took turns taking care of him in the night. Ben didn’t know that you shouldn’t leave a little baby without a diaper for even a minute when you change them. So Ben was up changing him and feeding him and Gary went to town in that bassinett and there was poop everywhere. Poor Ben.

Poor me, too, because on that same visit, I had both big kids in bed with me one evening because Ben was watching TV with his friends. I asked him to please move the kids when he came to bed, because they had bedwetting issues. He agreed but then fell asleep in front of the TV and the friends let themselves out. When I woke up, I couldn’t figure out why I was so wet. Is this sweat?my mind asked. Then I realized and got up quick. Both kids were already gone. I stepped onto the carpet and squished into another damp spot. Seems Krislyn had gotten mad and moved to the floor in the night.

And still, with all of this, the memory of the time down the road still pricks my mind, and it’s still painful.

It really wasn’t a big deal. And I have to remind myself that I was still pretty much a kid myself.

Okay, see, these kids rode the bus with me. They were great kids, and I enjoyed their company. So their parents asked me to babysit, and I did, several times.

The last time I did it, the little boy was sick. Not bad sick, just not able to play outside sick. And I was a fun babysitter who was open to the idea of playing outside, under normal circumstances.

So we watched TV, and played inside. But the kids really wanted to show me something they had been building down at the creek. We couldn’t go, because he was sick. But they really wanted me to see it. The boy (he was maybe 9) really wanted me and his sister to just go ahead and look at it really quick. He said he would be okay in the house for a couple of minutes while we walked down there.

They both wanted it so bad that I finally gave in. And before you’re wondering, nothing bad happened. The house didn’t burn down, the kid didn’t die, and everything was fine.

The only bad thing was that the kids’ grandparents happened to drive by and they could see the two of us at the creek. They asked what was going on, and I told them we just walked over for a second to see whatever it even was. They were obviously hacked and didn’t agree with my decision and told us we’d better get back to the house right away. So we did.

And that was the last time I babysat for them.

I don’t even know if the parents were mad. The kids never said that they were and we still were on the bus all the time together. Also, I was hired to babysit for their cousins later that year, and they said they called me because of the original parents’ recommendation. So I don’t know what to think.

Incidentally, that one wasn’t too hot either – the parents were taking their first night out since learning their daughter was ill with something…diabetes maybe? They went to Remington Park. They wanted us to contact them if there were any problems, no matter how small. This was, of course, before cell phones. So the little girl got sick with a fever and I had to call the parents. I had to call Remington Park and ask for them, and they finally found them. I told them that I didn’t think they needed to come home, but I knew they wanted to know. Well, they were really worried, and they came home.

That was the only time I babysat for them too. I heard later that they didn’t go out much after that.

So, that’s my babysitting experiences in a nutshell. One dollar per hour per child, whoohoo!

Did you ever have a paper route?

Did I ever have a paper route? Who comes up with these things? How many children actually have paper routes anymore? Isn’t like more Leave it to Beaver stuff?

I never had a paper route. But once again, I can figure out a way to provide a more thorough answer without having the experience, because although I never had a paper route, I have delivered papers.

This happened when I was working at the Tuttle Times. I was there for almost 10 years, and I was a writer, photographer, layout person, etc. Even sold a few ads once or twice. Jack-of-all-trades, if you will.

One thing I did not do was deliver papers.

But one day, there was a terrible storm coming. Big snowstorm sleety mess. I was innocently finishing up the newspaper at the Chickasha office, getting it ready to print. Lenora was over at the Epworth Christian Dayschool, where she went for the one day a week I was in Chickasha. She was little then…two years old or less, anyway.

After I got done with the newspapers, they would go through the big printing press. I liked to stick around until they printed, so I could see how it looked before I went home. Sometimes I didn’t wait, and just saw it when it was delivered to Tuttle the next day. This day I wasn’t planning on waiting – I wanted to get home early and beat the storm.

So I’m working away, and the lady who was in the charge of the circulation department comes over to me. See, it’s her job to deliver all of the papers to the Tuttle Post Office for mailing out the next morning. She lived in Moore, so she would go through Tuttle on Tuesdays to deliver those papers to the back dock. But she also wanted to go home on the turnpike so she could also beat the storm. So she asked me, since it was on the way for me anyway, if I could deliver those papers to the post office.

This was a hard question for me, because I did not want to do this. However, I also realized that she was a department head, and I tried very hard to do what they asked of me…you know, be a good employee and all that.

I tried to get out of it; I really did. I told her that I had to pick up Lenora, and I didn’t want to wait a long time for papers because I’d have her with me if a storm hit. But she assured me that the printing wouldn’t take long, and that there would surely be no problem and she basically made it clear that I was going to do this regardless and thank you very much.

So there I was.

After my part was done, I hung around at the basically empty office (everybody wanted to beat the storm) and listened to the radio talking about the weather. It sounded bad. I tried to call my boss to tell him my dilemma, but his phone didn’t pick up.

As 6 p.m. neared, I drove over to pick up Lenora. The school was like a ghost town. Everybody had picked their kids to…yeah, you know; to beat the storm. I strapped Lenora in her car seat and we went back to the newspaper office. The papers were finally printing.

Then they had to have inserts put in…and be labeled…and then Lenora and I got around to the side door and we started loading them in the car. Everybody was in a hurry because the storm was starting.

And then we left for Tuttle.

Obviously it was survivable because Lenora and I are still around and it’s quite a long time later, but it was bad. It was really bad. I have never driven in worse. I could not see the road. Everything was white. There were no other cars. Sometimes I could tell where the road was, but some of the time, I couldn’t. I just kept trying to go in a straight line. By the grace of God I could see the road in the curvy spots on the road.

I went about 15 miles an hour the whole way and saw no one. Four times my windshield froze up so much I had to get out and scrape it, even with the defroster on and the wipers going. They just froze right into the ice. I stopped the car right in the middle of the road and scraped it while praying no one would come skidding up behind us.

No cell phone, of course.

By the time I got to the post office, my fingers were numb and raw, my ears were ringing and my eyes were snow-blinded. I couldn’t go all the way to the back dock because it has a ramp, and I knew I’d never get back up it in the car, so I stopped in the parking lot and slid/crawled my way to the dock with all the papers. Then I made my way back to the car and made my way home.

Lenora slept during the horrible ordeal and was annoyed to be awakened to the blustery world when we got home. Lucky she slept – if she had been crying, and I hadn’t been able to focus, who knows what might have happened?

I was never so happy to go into my warm house, wrap up in a big blanket and pull my chair by the fire.

My memorable experience delivering papers.

Did you ever hitchhike?

Excuse me? Did I ever hitchike? Hells, no. Raped and murdered ain’t my thang.

I have ridden with strangers, though. I know. Super-smart. I know I did when I was a kid and missed the bus once. This nice guy came along and offered me a ride (this was on our rural little road.) I don’t know who he was and I’m very glad he wasn’t a serial killer. I was probably about 12 or so, so I was ripe for doing something dumb.

I got a ride from someone when my car broke down on the way back to Alva, from Enid, once. Well, that’s not being completely honest. My car did break down, but it was after I thought it would be fun to take the back road between Carmen and Dacoma, and the main back road was closed due to flooding, and I’d already come way too far so I took a road that went from bad to worse. When I attempted to ford what was basically a river in the middle of the “road,” the Camaro gave it up. Turned out to be a good thing too, because there was a drop off right in front of the car and I would have been in major trouble. God was surely looking out for me that day. I took off my shoes and waded to the road, then went, with mud to my ankles, to a house that turned out to be abandoned. Walking on, I ran into people in a truck and I figured I might as well go for it, as my sitation was bleak anyway. I don’t remember anything else (or even if I actually got a ride with them – I assume I did because what else could I have done?) but I’m still here typing, with no weird flashbacks or anything, so I guess it all went okay.

I always feel sorry for hitchhikers. I want to pick them up and help them. But I also do not want to be murdered so I have to let them walk. It was always nice to be in the Malibu with all five seats taken by Ben and me and the kids. Can’t feel guilty when there’s no place for the hitchhiker to go.

Ben thinks that he would like to be a hitchhiker-type guy, or a hobo or something, and ride the rails and eat beans out of a can and see the country or something. I say he’d better go in the fall because he hates pollen (spring), heat (summer), and cold (winter.) I guess he could start being a hobo in September and then maybe call me to pick him up near the end of October.

I would not like to be a hobo. Like hitchhiking, girl-hoboing sounds like another really good way to be raped/murdered.

Hey hey, I actually remembered to do this twice in a row. Could this be because I am glued to this new laptop 24/7? Could be!

Here is number two on the big journal entry site.

Describe your neighborhood bully.

Okay. I’ll start right here and say that I can’t answer this straight out, because we didn’t have a neighborhood bully. We didn’t really have a neighborhood. I grew up in a rural area, on a road with a neighbor on each side. The next nearest neighbor was an older couple, and then some littler kids lived past them. I knew them from the school bus, but only made the trek over there a couple of times.

The kids on either side of us were more our age. It was actually kind of a nice thing that we all were of comparable ages.

To the south of our place were the H family. Becky was in my grade at school, and we played together quite a bit. We had a pool and ponies; they had horses and a three-wheeler. They also had a pool, later, but ours was bigger and deeper.

I liked playing with Becky, but we got mad at each other sometimes. I loved riding with her on the three-wheeler. I would always ride behind Becky, with my arms around her. It was exhilarating and sometimes scary. There were hot places you didn’t want to touch with your bare leg. Experience made Becky more confident, and she would bend into the turns. I bent away from the turns.

We weren’t friends when we got older, and that was really a shame. I don’t even really understand why. I guess it was just the proximity that made us friends (my mom called us playmates) and we didn’t click otherwise. I was pretty nerdy, and Becky was mean a couple of times at school but friendly at home, and that didn’t fit well with me. Not that I blame her or anything. It’s hard enough to fit in during school days without having to stick up for your nerdy neighbor!

I vibrantly remember sneaking the Flintstones vitamins from our house and taking them triumphantly to Becky’s, and our eating them while we rode the three-wheeler. I remember she had a lamb, and she gave the lamb a bite of a carrot and then bit off the same carrot. I remember she had a horny toad. She was an excellent horsewoman, even as a little girl. She called her grandparents Granny and Pa, and I called them that too, in my head, but I didn’t address them as that. I called them Mr. and Mrs. H. Once, after we weren’t playmates anymore, I couldn’t find our pony, Crystal. I found her over at Becky’s (our parents opened the gates between the fields so the animals had both areas to roam) and Becky had saddled and bridled her, with a bit. I took Crystal home.

The neighbors on the other side were the A family. They were all older than me, but Jeff was only one year older. He was a boy, though, and I had no brothers, and he was better friends with my sister Marissa than me anyway.

One time I got hurt over there, and my mouth was bleeding bad, and Jill wouldn’t let me and Marissa in the house to clean it up because she said her mother wasn’t home and she would get in trouble if we made a mess, so we had to walk home with me bleeding the whole way. Mom was mad.

Janna was outside once and asked me if we were going anywhere for Spring Break, and I told her yes, to my grandparents’ house in Stilwell. She informed me that I meant Stillwater. I told her I didn’t, I meant Stilwell. She told me I was wrong. I told her I thought I knew where my own grandparents lived. She went inside, and I heard voices in there. I assume she was asking her mom and dad if there was a Stilwell, Oklahoma. She came out and sullenly told me to have a good time. It made me feel good that I stood up for myself with a big kid like that. Funny how I even remember such a little thing.

Jeff had a little motorcycle. He took Marissa on it a time or two, I think, but I never got to ride on it. One time our little boy dog was getting up on their big girl dog and I said, “Look! Gladys is giving Savage a ride!” and Jeff laughed and started to say something and Marissa told him to shut up and not tell me anything. Their dog Gladys had nipples that dragged on the gravel road sometimes when she walked around. She had puppies a couple of times while we lived there – once in our barn. She killed all but one little brown one by burying them in the dirt in the barn or something like that. It was awful. The little brown one looked like our dog, Buster. Buster and Gladys were comparable in size and style, and I think he was the father of most if not all of the puppies after we moved there.

The A family also had HBO, which we still called Home Box Office back then. I remember watching “Pete’s Dragon” over there one time.

So, no bully, really, just a bunch of kids living on the same street. Marissa bullied me a little, but she was really a symphony of extremes, from fiery anger to boundless adoration. So she wasn’t a bully either.

So I have a new laptop. Hurrah! It only cost $348 and I am very happy with it. I used some of the money I will be getting from Annie. I also plan to buy Lenora a little netbook for her schoolwork. I’d better move quickly before I think of other things I “need.”

One thing about this laptop. I told myself, repeatedly, that I would quit having an excuse to not write when I had a good, fast internet connection and a good computer that I trusted to save my stuff (well, as long as I have a backup, of course). And now, here it is, and the computer is almost one full day old.

I know that writing each day is key to getting back in the swing of things. I have no idea where to start. So I found a list of journal topics (on an angelfire site, no less) and thought I’d tackle them.

The site is Journal Topics. And here is number one.

Did you ever stick up for someone?

Did I ever stick up for someone? Yes, of course. How one-dimensional would a person have to be to never, ever stick up for someone?

Not that I’m bragging or anything, because seriously, I am not very good at sticking up for anybody. I’m more of a people pleaser, really, and so sticking up for people goes way against that grain. Pleasing the person I’m face-to-face with always seems to take priority.

So my brand of sticking up for someone usually consists of something mealymouthed like, “Hey, you shouldn’t say that. He/She is okay. But I see your point too.”

Isn’t that something that Jesus talked about? I’m neither hot nor cold and distasteful to the mouth. Great.

What’s the point, anyway? It seems like, at least with people I know, that if someone is talking bad about someone else, and you say, “No, you’re wrong about that,” they will get mad and not really care that you disagree anyway. All you’ve done is probably gotten yourself in a fight too. It also seems that people I know might be mad one second, but if you just don’t get your panties in a knot, they will calm down on their own in a little bit.

Maybe the question asked if I ever stuck up for someone when they were there too – like if a bully was picking on them. That I’m not sure of. Generally in school I was the one getting picked on, not watching it happen to someone else.

Anyway. One down. 🙂