trouble vs saint

When I was in 1st grade I got in trouble with the teacher because I talked out of turn and said the word, "stupid." An ordinary kid wouldn't have gotten in trouble, but I was the class angel so I got the hammer laid on me, to this day I am still frightened Mrs. Crocker will call my mom and tell on me, I never found out if she did or not.

One of the big "no-no's" when I was in 1st Grade was not bringing back your signed Report Card after your teacher had sent you home with it, now I imagine there's an activist group for report card privacy and one who gets offended for having report card privacy activist groups, but in 1991 neither group existed, and I was a part of the poor 6 year olds who faced the wrath of an angered parent for bad grades.

In my class that year, was a boy named Robert, I'll omit his last name for his sake (you never know, he may be 6'6" and 350 lbs of raw muscle, and I don't want to make any enemies of that size). Robert was bad, he was always trouble, it wouldn't surprise me if as a 1st grader he already had mustache hair or a tattoo. Well guess who didn't turn his report card in? You guessed it, Robert. Guess how we found out? About 4 months later he brought his unsigned report card back to the teacher and mentioned he'd found it and remembered he was supposed to give it back.

Had I not turned in my report card the very next day, I would have likely been locked up, but because bad Robert turned his in at all, it was "no harm, no foul."

Since the days of the 1st grade angel child I've learned a thing or 2, and not how to spell big words or do math with letters in it. The guy who's always in trouble gets praised for doing anything right and receives no penalty for his constant misbehavior, and "perfect one" suffers death row if a hair is found out place.

20 years later I would have never expected to be living with a school teacher, but that's right, I married one. Brittany, before she retired, used to come home and complain about "bad kids" and I could only wonder, "Am I a Bad Kid?" or "A Saint?"

Throughout the next series of posts, I'll highlight several stories from the life of jake, brittany, and the t-rex, and you can decide for yourselves. But keep this question in mind:

Who's road is easier, the trouble maker or perfectionist?