Questionable?
When you're only seven years of age, you don't really have doubts about things that are told to you. You take information in and it just goes right over your head without a single thought. But in those rare moments, there are times when your gullibility is tested to its breaking point. One of the most important skills to obtain in this world is the aptitude to distinguish between what is fact and what is fiction. In this short narrative, I'll describe one seemingly insignificant event, that had a significant impact on myself as a person to this day.
The year was 2003, the month was September, and the day I don't really remember; except that it was a school day, so it couldn't have been a Saturday or Sunday. It was just the start of a new school year in Temecula, California, and we were all stuck in class waiting for the school day to end. It wasn't necessarily a bad day, because for some reason I remember colored pencils scattered across the room and pictures on paper littered all over the ground. (Then again, the memory of that day could just be my postulation about what early school years were mainly like).
In my class there was an undeniably intimidating character whose name alludes me, since nobody really talked with him that much. Probably because of his menacing stature I can only assume. He had red hair, pale skin, and wore a spiky metal wristband. When I think back to it, I'm pretty sure the spikes were made of plastic, but that's beside the point. The daunting aspect of this kid was that he was a year older, and a whole lot bigger than the rest of us, making him a bit difficult to approach. That spiky wristband he wore is the center piece to his legacy in my mind.
On that day, the scary kid with the spiky wristband decided to tell a story to a group of us second graders. It was short, sweet, and straight to the point. He first told us to look at his wristband, and then out of nowhere he blurted out that he had robbed a jewelry store to get it. He didn't explain anything, or go into details, he just stated that he robbed a store to get the wristband. In my mind, I had no reason to doubt him, because to me,(not to be prejudice or anything, but...) he looked the part. There was just one thing that I wanted to know. It wasn't "why does that wristband look like something from a dollar tree?", or "why are you happy about stealing?", no, instead I asked, "how did you do it?".
Of course he had no answer, so he just sat there fidgeting and wriggling in his seat when the rest of us were waiting for an answer. While he was sitting there dumbstruck for not being able to answer a somewhat simple follow up question, the rest of us started a yelling circle where we kept on shouting, "how", over and over again. Seconds later the teacher overheard our voices and headed straight for us, which was the signal to scram. Because the red haired boy was the only one left he was interrogated first. After being forced to tell his lie to the teacher, he was then forced to apologize to the rest of us. When I came home with this story, my parents only laughed at me for being swindled by this obvious ruse for attention. After the verbal onslaught of humiliation (laughter of parents lasting about 3 seconds), I decided that I would pay closer attention to stories being told to me from then on, and to always remember this story as a reminder to never be that gullible again.
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