I was the typical young male. I took risks and behaved in various rebellious manners.
In school if there was work I didn't want to do I could become as devious as possible to get out of it until my Dad caught me and that ended the nonsense. In literature we took the play Abraham Lincoln. I'd read a couple of biographies on Lincoln and I liked him. I didn't like the play. Worse than that, each day the teacher wrote 4 or 5 questions on the chalk board so we were supposed to read a section and then answer the questions. I copied the questions down and didn't answer them. My buddies laughed and were always watching to see if I got caught.
There were 25 kids in my high school from gr. 10 to 12 with one teacher for all courses.. You bet the teacher was busy. One day he had a few minutes and was going to check our "questions". The boys really got excited as they thought, "Red's going to get caught this time." Well I was next in line when the bell went so my book wasn't checked. The guys laughed harder that ever and I thought I was a super hero. I couldn't see any further ahead than than answering the questions.
My brother took the same course then next year. He tried to do the assignments but had trouble with them. He knew my books were still in the house so he thought, "I'll just copy Red's answers." He was surprised to find that not one question had been answered.
So I got away without doing the assignments on the play Abraham Lincoln or so I thought.
A few years later I found myself in first year college English. Guess what? I wasn't prepared for it. In fact, I failed the course. There was more to it than not doing assignments. I was never assigned an essay all through high school. I was not taught how to write an opinion piece and support my position. I was not assigned a persuasion paper. I was completely unprepared for college English. I had to do some hard work, get some tutoring and do the course twice in order to pass it.
So did I get away with anything? I think not.
How about you? Did you do things that you really got away with or did you pay the price sooner or later.
As adults , are there things that we don't do but cost us in other ways?
