On Learning the Wrong Lesson

I occasionally find myself purposely learning the wrong lesson from things.  This desire to learn the wrong lesson has hit me a few times this week as I've reminisced about my life thus far and the lessons I could learn 29.90 years of living.  But even more pertinent is my experience today - I had a rage aneurysm.  You know, when something is so suddenly upsetting that the combination of jaw clenching, eye strain from not crying, and rage-induced high blood pressure causes your blood vessels to expand and then burst (figuratively)?   With a single email, I went through an intense series of emotions that ultimately lead me to decide that I had wasted all of last week, and I was angry about this.  I'm uncomfortable with anger, but I proceeded to stifled rage.  I was in my office, you see, so tears and yelling "Are you freaking kidding ME?!?!?" were not appropriate, thus the rage aneurysm.  Once home, I let the tears loose and thought about how I could prevent such an outburst in the future (after all, the next aneurysm might be real).  My first reaction was "Don't work so much, you can't regret work you didn't do."  But that didn't seem right, I take pride in my work and the reputation I hope that builds.  The next reaction was to consider emailing the antagonist to let them know my rage, but I had already sent an email that said "Right on," so it was a little late for an about-face.  I'm not sure what the right lesson to learn from this is.  I suspect it is something nuanced, like to be more of a participant in work place activities and say "no" to requests that might waste my time.  But I think I might just become jaded, because that's easy; plus my mom used to call me jaded and she loves me.

Earlier in the week, while I was thinking about life experiences and the lessons they have taught me, I remembered the time my parents got me to admit to something my sister did.  This happened more than 20 years ago, but I think I finally figured out the lesson to learn from it, which means I've been learning the wrong lesson for decades now.

Flashback to 1990.  The Downard's had just moved to Clinton, to the first home my parent's were owners of, not renters.  Can you feel the freedom?  It was palpable to me (and I imagine to everyone who recalled our recent apartment complex years).  Also relevant to this experience, my mom was buying nice makeup, I can't remember if she was into Avon products at the time or purchasing things from her department store job, but she definitely wasn't using the grocery store stuff that I buy.

At the time, our yard looked like this -

 - and Liz and I were just learning how to ride our bikes (a great story for another day), so there was often free time to make trouble.  Of course I used this as an opportunity to study the new suite of plants around town, help my dad dig trenches for the irrigation system, and read the dinosaur book (as I remember it).

But do you know what Liz did? She drew X's on the house with my mom's waterproof mascara!  As I mentioned I earlier, it was quality mascara, so the X's are still there and I'll be taking a picture next time I'm in C-town.

This was pretty upsetting to Mom and Dad.  Big black X's on their brand new house.  So they sat Liz and I down and asked us who had desecrated their house.  Here my memory gets fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure they went into the interrogation knowing that Liz did it, and that said interrogation lasted for 3 hours.  [Keep in mind, it was 1990, we were 5 and 6.]

After 2 hours (or maybe less) I cracked.  I said it was me.  I remember weeping profusely and thinking that the whole experience would be over if I just admitted to it because Liz definitely wasn't going to.  But then IT DIDN'T END.  They called my bluff and kept asking who did it, they kept giving Liz the opportunity to admit what she had done.  I don't even know how long it took for the interrogation to end, but I'm 90% confident it ended when my parents told Liz that they knew she had drawn the X's.

So what are the lessons to be learned from this?  The lesson I carried with me for most of my life was that Liz is more devious than me, so I shouldn't challenge her and definitely should not tattle (we had an excellent list of "I'll tell mom's" to hold against each other).  This whole experience might actually be the root of "Mean Lizzie" (the siblings sometimes call her that, because clearly she used to be mean).  But since we've graduated high school and become quite good friends, Liz has convinced me she's actually very sweet and can't lie, even if she wanted to.  The other, longer lasting lesson I learned from this is that confessions induced by interrogations can't be trusted.  Thus, I've got more faith in judicial proceedings that aren't based on coerced confessions and I don't think "enhanced interrogations" are a good means of combating terrorism.  Come to think of it, perhaps I did learn at least one good lesson from the whole experience.

However, 23 years later, I think I've finally learned the "Right" lesson from the Mascara X's Interrogation Experience:

Parenting is hard, especially when your kids are smart.  

I've only learned this as I've watched Mom and Dad raise my younger siblings (some of which are young enough they're still being raised) and Liz raise her kids.  Kids are trouble and often much smarter than we give them credit for.  And sometimes they use those smarts for evil.  That's all.

Of course, this has been strictly from my perspective.  If Liz wants to chime in with an explanation of why she drew the X's (I'd love a story about buried treasure), or if Mom and Dad want to let me know if they really knew it was Liz, you're welcome to do it.