TASK #50

December 11th--December 17th

I'm Sorry

A clear conscience is often a sign of a bad memory.  Unknown

We've all done things that are incredibly stupid, thoughtless, hurtful and vicious. And we did them with malice and forethought. In other words, we did them deliberately. And the victims of our cruelty run the gamut from complete strangers to the people we love.

God knows I'm guilty of some stunts that I really, really regret. Here are two:

1. I worked at a Holiday Inn during college. There was a kid who worked there, a dishwasher, who was mentally challenged. He could communicate, but not very well. Every night he ate a ham sandwich that his mother packed for him. I got this silly-ass notion to play a prank on the kid. I went to a Thai grocery store and bought a hot pepper. A Bin Jolokia. More commonly known as a Ghost Pepper. The hottest pepper known to man. A pepper so hot that it could fell a Thai horse. I sliced it open and put the seeds on the dishwasher's sandwich. He ate it and within moments he was hopping around the kitchen screaming and clutching his throat. His face turned beet red and he wet his pants and stuck his face in the dirty dishwater. His mother had to come get him...

2. After I left for college I started ignoring my mother. And when I came home I barely spent any time at home. I didn't want to talk to her or hang around with her. I sorta put her in storage, like my toys and my high school letterman's jacket. I figured that I'd make it up to her down the road. Several years passed by. Then the phone rang. It was my brother. He told me that she'd been hit by a car. And then all of a sudden it was too late to make up for lost time. 

Regrets, I have a few...I realized that I couldn't get past my dumb-ass mistakes unless I said that I was sorry. I tried to find the dishwasher but 20 years had passed and he had disappeared. And my mom--she died.I apologized at her grave site, but you talk about too little, too late...

Those people have gone, but there are others to whom I owe an apology, and they are alive and kicking and I know how to reach them. 

TASK:

List your list of what you regret you have done to another person. Pick out one--one that involved someone who is still in your life. Send that person some flowers or a card that says you're sorry. You can do it anonymously or not. Up to you. 

Let me know how it g
oes: JoeDoeBula@gmail.com