Good people making bad choices

Last night as I was tucking one of my daughters into bed we had a conversation. It started off with my daughter asking about kids who had vandalized some playground equipment in Canada. Yes, we talk about random stuff at bedtime. She was wondering why kids do such terrible things, and wondering if they were, in fact, just terrible kids.

I like to think that no one is truly terrible. So I told her that sometimes good people get caught up in a situation and something bad happens. Even though it wasn't what the person started out intending to do. This didn't make a whole lot of sense to her, so I decided to share a little story from my youth.

When I was in fifth grade three of my friends and I were in the bathroom. We were washing our hands and chatting when one of my friends grabbed some paper towels, wet them with water and soap, and threw the gooey blob up onto the ceiling. Where it stuck. We all stopped with our mouths hanging open and stared at her. Until someone started laughing. And someone else joined in. And then we were all laughing. One thing led to another, and before you knew it we were all giggling and tossing gooey-towel-blobs onto the ceiling.

Eventually common sense prevailed. We composed ourselves and went back to the classroom. I didn't think much about what we had done until the next day when we were all back in the bathroom again. One of my friends was going to the bathroom when PLOP! One of the gooey-towel-blobs fell off the ceiling and landed in the stall with her. Now if throwing the blobs on the ceiling in the first place is funny, then watching them fall down on unsuspecting people using the bathroom is hilarious.

At this point we were laughing like deranged hyenas at the fact that we were getting bombed by our own gooey-towel-blobs. In the midst of this hysteria one of my friends suggested that we throw more towel blobs so that more girls could experience the fun and joy of having these blobs fall upon them while using the bathroom.

So we each fortified ourselves with an armload of gooey towels and picked a stall. We were still laughing like idiots, and tossing gooey blobs onto the ceiling in rapid fire succession when the principal walked in to investigate the source of the ruckus. Busted.

Had I ever done anything like that before? No. Did I know in my rational brain that it was a stupid idea? Yes. And yet it happened. Am I a terrible person? Not for the most part -- just a good person making a bad choice.

And just so you know, that is about the most horrible thing I did as a kid. I'm actually more of a goody-two-shoes. But something happened that day....