The Dented Halo

No one has ever confused me with a saint.

Being a good person is not the same as being saintly. There’s a lot of room in between the two. Still, I’ve played by the rules for most of my life, and I’ve had the benefit of knowing good people who have influenced me throughout.

Many of those good people were Nuns.

The Nuns that I have known were usually strict, but fair. They taught me to work hard, to care for others, and to be accountable. I still cringe when I recall how badly I felt when I disappointed one of them.

During the last semester of 8TH grade, the class worked on a project where we created a fake town in the classroom. The town had a bank, businesses, and a government. The exercise was supposed to provide us with a glimpse into what it was like in the real world. The instructions were simple: Everyone had a job to do and we should use our imaginations to make the experience as real as possible.

I was a good student. I was also very polite. I learned early on that these were two things that were admired by adults and teachers alike.

“He’s such a good boy, and so bright too!”

I also discovered that these traits also tended to disarm adults of their natural suspicions. This was a mistake because well behaved children are still children, so they are apt to experiment, rebel, and push boundaries.

The fake town also had police and a jail, so I asked the Nun what they would be doing. She said that the police were responsible for making sure that everyone played by the rules.

For some reason, I chose this class project as my opportunity to do something crazy.

I went gansta!

As a trusted student, I was placed in charge of the treasury. Monopoly money was transformed into fake town money simply by stamping it with a symbol. As treasurer, the lone official stamp was entrusted to me.

Yes, I went to the dark side.

I enlisted some classmates to assist me in disbursing the counterfeit currency throughout the town. I don’t remember how this benefited us, but somehow it did, so I used the stamp liberally and amassed a fortune.

How I got caught is a memory long forgotten, but what happened after I was nabbed will stay with me forever.

Sr. Barbara Ann was livid. Her face reddened with anger as I made my confession. My weak attempt at justifying my actions by laying the blame on shoddy police work was quickly dismissed. Her disappointment was real, as was the red-hot sense of panic that enveloped my body.

All that was left was the shame.

As I sat in fake jail I wondered why I had done it.

I still haven’t come up with an answer.

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Okay, it’s time for true childhood confessions:

What did you do to get yourself into the most trouble as a child?

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Tagged as: childhood mistakes, life lessons, life preparations, mo money mo problems, nuns, ray colon, raycolon, the dented halo, the saint, true confessions

Author Bio:

Ray Colon has written 136 posts on Ray's Blog.

He works with numbers for a living, but don't judge - boring accountants need love too. His blog has no niche (unless writing about things that are important to him is a niche). Some folks cringe when he gets “all political” on them, but he does it anyway when he's in that kind of mood. Sometimes, he writes something nice about someone, but you shouldn't get used to that. His first book, the one he hasn't written yet, is not available on Amazon. Subscribe to Ray's Blog via RSS  or Email.

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