Take Me out to the Football Game

My Gator tickets had finally arrived.  Three tickets for seats on the Michigan side of the field.  Exactly where I didn't want to be sitting.  The embarrassment of being a Gator fan on the Michigan side was enough for me, but to top it off, my parents had their Michigan jackets on.  I could only pray that the Gators won; however as most know, there was a very slim chance of that happening.

            The ride to the game was filled with screaming and shouting as we missed several turns and got lost.  All of that disappeared as I felt myself slowly fill with excitement the closer we got to the stadium. My best friend and I peered over the window of the car.  We stared at the hundreds of people piling through the gates of the stadium all squeezed together like sardines.  It was the first college football game I had ever been to and I was exploding with excitement.  To make it even better, it wasn't just any regular season game, it was the Citrus Bowl and I was with my best friend.

            We entered the stadium and spent almost forty minutes trying to make it through the swarms of cheering fans with brightly painted bodies.  My friend, Lauren, and I stuck out like a sore thumb sitting on the Michigan side with our bright neon orange and blue Gator shirts.  We were yelled at for a good thirty minutes while Florida was winning.  But when Michigan made the tying field goal, we decided it would be best to cheer for the soon to be winning team.  So every time Michigan scored we would put on our Wolverine sweatshirts and cheer like crazy.  However when Florida scored, we took our sweatshirts off and flaunted our Gator pride even if we were getting “booed” by the surrounding people.

            It was then that I realized that a great time comes not from what you do, but who you are with.  I didn't know very much about football or really even understand it.  But in that stadium surrounded by my friends and fans joking and cheering for one common purpose made everything seem so relaxed, as if who won this football game was the biggest worry any of us had.  All my other problems melted away because right then, I could only focus on this trivial game.  I sat in my seat watching the game, and my mind floated pleasantly, wondering why it was that I ever thought life was so complicated.

Venus Flytrap

No very small animal can be beautiful, for looking at it takes so small a portion of time that the impression of it will be confused. –Aristotle

Surely Aristotle’s wrong.  If a Venus Flytrap isn’t beautiful, it’s not because it’s small.  When I hovered over the green carnivorous plant I gazed at its pearly white flowers just beginning to bloom, the olive green stems, spidery lines protruding from its mouth, and the Valentine’s Day pink on the inside of its well disguised mouth.  The plant was miniscule in size compared to the full-grown red oak standing beside it.  Its baby-sized leaves were smaller than my thumb.  Yet whether or not its size was a factor, it held the attraction of all those around it, myself included.  My eyes were fixed on its seemingly increasing beauty.  Its mouth widened until it was fully extended with its needlepoint teeth pointed towards the sky.  The flytrap remained frozen in time for hours imitating a magnificently carved marble sculpture.  Its leaves smelling of sweet perfume tickled my nose.  I couldn't even glance at the plant and without being drawn in by its beauty.

Within moments of becoming entranced by the Venus flytrap its mouth snapped shut in less than a millisecond.  The fly that had been hovering above it just a second before had now vanished.  The Venus Flytrap snatched away the life of the flying creature within seconds.  I watched in disgust as the insect writhed from within the mouth of the plant, its acids slowly killing the fly.  The pointed teeth-like lobes of the plant closed around the fly creating a barrier between it and the rest of the world.  The fly squeezed its legs through the lobes of the plant like a prisoner with his head between the spaces of a jail cell.  The plant finally fully closed its mouth with a fly leg or two still sticking out of the corner of its mouth.  Very slowly enzymes were released into the stomach of the flytrap and the fly was devoured.

Within the beautiful disguise of the Venus Flytrap sits a repulsive and ghastly interior.  The heart of this creature is quite dreadful and grotesque.  It manipulates its prey by attracting it with its florescent colors and sweet smell; then turns on its prey with a split second, and it is trapped beneath its lobes like a mouse trapped by a cat.  Aristotle notwithstanding, this has nothing to do with size but with unseemly proportions and the reminder that need so often vulgarizes form.  The intentions of the Venus Flytrap corrupted its beauty.  It was transformed in my mind not like a butterfly from something trivial and bland into something magnificent, but from something magnificent into something vulgar and crude.

Right vs. Wrong

When I was ten years old I knew the difference between right from wrong.  I knew it was wrong to lie, steal, cheat, be disrespectful, make jokes at others expense, talk back to a parent or teacher, etc. I understood that these ideas and actions were morally wrong or against the law.  Yet, I also understood that sometimes people’s own personal desires proved to be stronger than their moral understandings and behavior.  I knew that I too was often tempted by my own desires to push my conscience aside to the corner of my mind.  That little voice telling me that what I’m doing is wrong is just going to have to wait.  Yet, somehow I almost always managed to stop myself before any real harm was done.

So when I sat in the back of the classroom knowing not a single answer to the questions sitting in front of me, I felt that temptation to peer over at my neighbor’s paper.  I kept telling myself it wouldn’t hurt them. It wouldn’t hurt anyone. No one will know.  Why is this such a bad thing? For those few seconds I was fully prepared to cheat off my classmate’s paper. I had seen plenty of people do it before and not get caught. Why couldn't I do it?  No one would see or know. Yet the one part of my brain that knew it was morally wrong stood its ground.  I spent about fifteen minutes sitting there deciding whether or not I should cheat.  I hadn’t paid attention in class and it was a pop quiz so it was quite obvious that I would fail it if I didn't cheat.  I kept telling myself, I should fail this.  This is my punishment for not caring or bothering to listen in class.

It took all my willpower to do the right thing and not cheat.  I got my quiz back a week later and sure enough, I had received a C-.  And although I should have been angry at myself for doing so poorly, all I could feel was relief for making the right choice and not cheating.  I deserved the grade I got.  To add to my relief, the student I was considering cheating off of did worse than me.  When I saw that, I knew it was ironic and slightly fated.  Had I cheated, karma would have been slapping me in the face with an even worse grade.

The next weekend I found myself sitting in my Sunday school room when my teacher said, “I’m going to ask you all a question and I want you to answer honestly.  If you all were given a test that determined whether you had an A or a B in a class and you hadn’t studied for the test, would you cheat to get an A or fail the test and get a B? And if you cheat, no one will know and you will not get in trouble.”  I watched as each student anonymously turned in their answers.  The count was in.  Over 50% of the students would have cheated to get an A.  I was one of the few who could honestly answer that they would do the right thing and not cheat.  I have been forever proud of that.