After publishing last week’s episode, I heard from readers who told me they were glad to see me back and looking forward to new episodes of Knee Deep. Because I did not earn a living through most my life as a writer, acknowledgements from my subscribers not only validate my stories as positive additions to their lives but also help me fine tune the stories to make them more meaningful, entertaining, and timely for you listeners. So, thanks for the words of encouragement last week – they were much appreciated!
This last week also marked the progress for one of my grandsons, Cash, who is getting acclimated to first grade. He’s been in pre-school and kindergarten, of course, but first grade is like a new planet, where naps and snack time take second fiddle to the work of learning. This milestone of first grade quickly leaves Toddlerville in the rear-view mirror, and the new scenery is a lot for the little whippersnapper.
On the days when I pick him up from school, Cash looks tired but wired, ready for anything but a desk. I think of that wonderful and quirky Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson where a student on the front row is raising his hand…
“Teacher,” he says, “may I be excused? My brain is full!” It’s that same exhaustion-frustration combo all kids feel when they just can’t take another moment of thinking. I see evidence of this in Cash’s face as he trudges out to the car carrying a backpack so big he could sleep in it, waving goodbye without looking back and trying to put as much distance between himself and the school building as he can.
As a rule, I like to ask him what the best and worst part of his day was, but now, on the verge of a bad case of BRAIN-FULL Cash has told me, sadly, that he has used up all his words for the day and can’t answer any more questions. So lately, I’ve switched my tactics and ask him instead to tell me about the funniest part of his day, which seems, at least for now, to be a question he can handle.
“Well today, Popeye,” he begins, “a girl lost her bow at recess. And then, when she couldn’t find it, she lost her glasses too.”
“Oh, a bow?” I say, encouraging him.
“Yea, a BIG bow and her glasses. But she didn’t care about the glasses, only the bow.”
“Don’t you need the glasses to find the bow?” I said, not using my first-grade brain.
“No, she was very upset about the bow for her hair. She was looking all over for it.”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“Well,” as he always begins, “well, right when I thought she was going to cry, she found a giant yellow LEGO on the ground and started jumping up and down. She started yelling ‘I found it! I found it!’ And the rest of the day she wore the LEGO in her hair!”
“What about the glasses?” I asked, but Cash jumped right into the next story.
He told me about a boy he watched slowly fall asleep at his desk, apparently also suffering from a brain too full of new information.
“He fell asleep working and got a D minus on his paper,” Cash said.
“Ouch, that’s kind of sad,” I answered.
“Yea, the teacher called him up and asked him why he didn’t finish his paper, and he told her he didn’t know the paper was there.”
“Not there?”
“Nope, not there!” Cash repeated.
“I get that,” I said, “a lot of times I don’t know stuff is there either.”
Hmmm, I thought, I always like to sleep when rules and regulations get to be too much. It’s a great elixir for everything. However, Cash is learning that with rules and regulations come ways to earn rewards, and he’s all about rewards. If it involves earning a Jelly Belly, or a gold chocolate coin, he’s on it big time. When his teacher outlined a reward system, and how to earn tickets for this or that, Cash’s ears went up like a jackrabbit. AND, as if a ticket wasn’t enough, kids could also earn a special blue ticket for outstanding displays of citizenship (you know, like carrying another student out of a burning building, things like that).
Now it just so happened that the big-ticket item this week was on, you guessed it, giving compliments, and how valuable they are, and how God delights when we lift each other up by noticing good things in one another. Upstairs, between Cash’s two little Jack Rabbit ears, the switches and gears were churning, so that when he noticed another class being very quiet on their restroom break, he took it upon himself to walk right up and compliment that teacher on how well behaved her class was.
“Mrs. Blackwell, I want to give your whole class a compliment. They did very well in the hallway today,” Cash remarked with some authority, but without a teaching license.
There it was! It was like a scene out of an episode of Kid President. Cash had given a first rate, first grade compliment! He had humbled himself, stepped out of his own bathroom line when he wasn’t supposed to, and powered up his complimentary compliment! This was humbling work being a first grader, but somebody had to do it, and it was going to be him. Later, when he unexpectedly received the coveted blue ticket reward, Cash must have felt like he had just been awarded the last Golden Ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, minus the chocolate and minus the free tour of Willy Wonka’s factory.
Telling me about this moment, I couldn’t help but think what good things he was going to catch me doing around my house. With enough compliments and blue tickets, I might be able to skip my utility bill for a month or pass on my property taxes. Hey, this compliment and encouragement thing might begin to pay off, I thought, and I started dreaming of things I might do to earn a blue ticket. Without question, I certainly could be making much quieter trips to the bathroom myself, and that would be a compliment to everyone around me.
And so, the circle is complete. What bathroom break goes around, comes around. What’s good for the goose in the bathroom, is good for the gander in the bathroom and so on and so forth. The point is that in real life we have the power to overlook others' bone-headed moves and mistakes by jumping right to the good stuff – the compliments! It takes extra time of course, and a little practice, perhaps a new awareness of social cues and fair play in society, but in the end, someone else is going to shine. Giving a compliment, handing out that blue ticket smile helps us step down from ourselves for a moment for the lasting satisfaction of what it does for someone else. As Maya Angelou once said, “At the end of the day, people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”
So, with that, and as a complimentary compliment to you, I’m offering the first five of my extraordinary listeners to this week’s episode a ten-dollar gift card to Starbucks. It’s kind of like my blue ticket to you, for reading or listening to my podcast. Just text or email me when you read this and I’ll let you know if you are a winner!