Country singer Randy Travis’s “1982” proclaims that “hindsight’s twenty-twenty.” Too often that perfect vision is, well, hindsight, which leaves many golden opportunities for profound intervention out to dry as forever past tensical.
Today by randomchance I remembered a meeting for new teachers at my school. It was during the first part of my first year of teaching, and the meeting was the one shot our “mentor” took at doing anything at all with us. There were donuts, I recall.
Among our group of initiates was one unfortunate character, unfortunate because somehow he received–at times duly invited, certainly unwanted–distaste and even scorn from others not interested in his highly professional background that, to many, appeared somehow to place him in a self-appointed “wise one” category. It didn’t help that our mentor was–still is–a rather crass jokester with haranguing the unfortunate character on the brain.
Before the unfortunate character entered the meeting room, the mentor passed around party favors: lottery tickets. But for the unfortunate character, the mentor chortled secretively, there was not just any old real ticket, but one touting winnings of $30,000–and directions to pick up the prize at the Easter bunny’s house.
When the meeting was officially convened and we shared pennies to scratch and win nothing, the unfortunate character was at first stunned.
“Oh, My, God,” he said, dead serious. “I just won $30,000. Oh my God!”
I don’t remember what followed–perhaps giggles around the room–as he turned the card over and read the back’s fine print.
“Oh,” he said then. “I really don’t respond well to that.”
Ever since then, I have regretted not acting when I could have so easily intercepted the moment’s hurt and cruel glee.
If I could rewrite that story, I would have, unbeknownst to the mentor, switched my lottery ticket with the fake one at the unfortunate character’s seat. The risk of doing this would have been tremendous (What if the ticket originally mine really was the big winner of the week?), but certainly well worth the look on the mentor’s face when I could have jumped to my feet screaming, “I won! I won!”
