A Dinosaur Tail

I walked Full Speed into school today to help him drop off some canned goods for the school’s annual food drive.  He asked if it was okay to stop by one of his teacher’s rooms to choose his prize for a great report card he recently received.

Why not?

Naturally, he chose the biggest, brightest, most obnoxious looking stuffed dinosaur I have ever seen.  The kicker is, he was too embarrassed to carry it (and it was too massive to fit in his backpack).  I couldn’t make him choose something else because the night before Mad Dog and I declared that if he was the one earning the good grades, he could choose whatever he wanted (this is before we knew giant dinosaurs were a prize option).  Since my back was up against the wall, I decided to set a good example and own it.  If I showed him that I didn’t care that the entire school was staring at me, then I could show him that what others think about you, isn’t so important.

I was so proud of myself.  Look at me walking through the halls with my dino pal proudly on display.  Of course I was in sweats and had not an ounce of make-up on, and let’s be honest, my hair was barely combed into place.  I didn’t care.  When the sixth graders gave me a shout out of, “Nice, dinosaur!”, I said, “Thanks!” and kept on walking with my head held high.  Of course, the younger students treated me like a rock star.  This only bolstered my resolve.

I managed to walk my shy, self-conscious self all the way to the front of the school and was home free.  That is until a teacher stopped me and pointed out that with each step I took, the dinosaur’s tail swished back and forth behind me as if I was waving a flag of attention to myself.  It was bad enough that I shook my ‘tail’ the entire length of the school (believe me, this school is big and the hallways are looong), but to have an adult call me out, it was hard to maintain my composure.

Is it bad if I hope Full Speed’s next report card only gets him into the pencil and small eraser section of the prize closet?  All it took was one dinosaur to make me a fan of underachievment.