The Line
When I was a kid, there were always no-brainer rules we were expected to follow: no calling your siblings names, no lying, and, most importantly, no drawing on the wall.
In kindergarten I was enlightened: writing actual words is kinda fun. I learned how to write my own name (three letters, so it’s not that big a deal, but still). I was obsessed with writing! I would write in my “diaries” (little notebooks my mom bought me to explore my creativity that ended up filled with random scribbles and illegible rants). These so-called diaries would most oftentimes fill my desire to write the most random phrases I could think of.
When I ran out of paper, I turned to the wall. I grabbed a pen and began the first horizontal line of a Z. It wasn’t until I had completed the “o” that I realized my fatal mistake: I had written my own name. Obviously, when a kid is given a pen and decides to write on a wall, they’re going to write their own name. I, being a pragmatic and wise individual, decided to undo this mistake.
There was a little trend going on in my classroom where when a student made a mistake on paper, they would simply cross it out with a single horizontal line. All the cool kids were doing it. So what did I do? I gripped the pen with my grubby little hand and made one long line across the two letters. I thought, “if my parents find this, I’ll definitely get in trouble!”
I needed a scapegoat. A scapegoat in the form of my own brother. I wrote out his name instead, right next to my own failed attempt. Even though I had better handwriting than him, even at that point, I figured all the evidence they would need to determine the criminal was his name written oh-so-clearly next to the crossed out words (it's polite to ignore others' mistakes, right?).
I got in trouble. I can't remember how much trouble, but I imagine my parents were not pleased to have a new addition to our already scuffed wall.
The moral of the story? Don't write on walls. But if you do, don't write your own name.
