14.
Overcoming Unhealthy Relationships
When I was very young, I can remember so vividly my mother and father urging me to make good choices with kids I hung out with. But there was a time in second grade, the years when a young boy wants to be accepted by his friends when I got myself into quite a spot. During lunch, a couple of boys in my class were hatching a plan to keep our sandwich bags and ask the teacher to excuse us to go to the bathroom, at different times of course. They planned to fill up our sandwich bags with water and have a water balloon fight.
Who does that? Seven-year-old boys do, that’s who.
It was a full-proof plan until someone decided to stuff their bag down the sink drain and the water began to back up and flooded the bathroom. We all tried to stop the water from flowing, and we tried to clean up the floor with paper towels, but they just stopped up the floor drain even more. It was a circus of craziness.
Then it happened. The teacher knocked on the door and announced she was coming in. One of the boys ran into the stall and acted like he wasn’t part of the sandwich-bag mayhem. Another boy tried to run out the door. And two of us were left standing over the drain and sink with a dazed look on our faces.
Needless to say, we were all sent to the principal’s office. It was one of the scariest fifteen minutes of my life. There I sat, waiting for the principal to come in, with wet pant legs and soggy shoes and socks, evidence that I had been part of the debacle. Guilty.
My mom was called. When she arrived, I don’t remember much of the conversation. But what I do remember is what happened when I got home. I was disciplined. I was also told, once again, that who I decide to hang out with determines who I choose to become. She commanded me to stay away from the boys who influenced me to do this deed.
Being from a Christian family, I was also given the Bible verses to remind