Being funny my Dad, a former Marine, rips a quarter from his pocket and says, "If it doesn't bounce back up in my hand, it's not perfect and can be done better."
Flipping the coin on the bed of course it's sucked into the covers.
"You'll get it right," Dad laughs grabbing the quarter and leaving the room.
My Father had a good heart, was a kind man and it was just his way of "playing" but ... I learned the first lesson in it's never enough.
Regardless of how much you give ... or withhold ... it's never enough ... people will take everything and demand everything regardless of what you do.
Several years later I'm skipping through the neighbor's back yard where I find a wadded up $20 bill!
In disbelief of my incredible good fortune, I hop on my trusty bike, speed to Cowart's Drug Store and purchase perfume for my Mom, tobacco for Dad, baseball cards for David and comic books for me.
Presenting the gifts at home, my Dad's convinced I stole them and orders me to return everything to Cowart's Drug Store which, in spite of my sobbing protest, I did.
I learned you can be punished for doing good things.
Today I remain phobic about neatly making the bed.
I'm wary, untrusting and suspicious of gifts, a very ungracious recipient of presents large or small, somehow believing I don't deserve them.
I can pinpoint when and where both traits, perhaps they're serious flaws, were born ... and I have no idea why they remain significant exhibitions of my behavior on a daily basis.
A successful life is one in which you never stop discovering yourself, learning new things, embracing change and, in my case anyway, the past is between the covers of dusty books on the shelf.
At least I wish the last part were true.
I often have a hard time shaking the past to be fully and completely in the present.
In the grand scheme who things, who gives a shit if the beds made?
Why not enjoy, relish and exploit life's pleasures when they're revealed?
And why should I care what anyone else thinks of it?
It's a funny thing growing up.
If you're not completely in the moment of now, you're stuck in the past and will never successfully make it to the future.
