Retriever

In grade 1, a few of us “advanced” spellers got to create our own list of words for our spelling quiz. Having a golden (ok, this post is just full of irony since I just spelled that “goldon”) retriever at home, I suggested that one of our words be “retriever.” When the time for the test came, I, for some reason, decided to write the word “retriever” on a slip of paper and put it on my lap. I can’t remember if I actually used the paper to spell the word correctly on the quiz, but I do remember getting it right.

Afterwards, I went up to my teacher with a HUGE grin, a proud sort of smile, to share with her my ingenious strategy to ensure that I would spell the word right. Clearly, she was not as pleased with me as I was, evident by the concerned look on her face. She looked at me and said:

“I didn’t think that you would cheat. I didn’t think that would be something that Devon would do.”

Seriously, those were her exact words. She remains to this day one of my favourite teachers. And I don’t know why in the world I thought it would be ok for me to cheat on a quiz, but for some reason I did. I don’t know if I had ever been given the opportunity to full-out cheat on something before… I’m sure I had tricked my family with stories once in a while (or at least I thought I was tricking them), but never actually cheated.

Anyway. The point of this isn’t “and I never cheated again,” but rather a realization that the way we act dictates people’s perception of us… everything we do makes an impression on our character and when that impression is wrong, disappointment follows. Or something like that.

This isn’t some reflection on my current state of mind, I’m just wondering why this is one of the small handful of memories of grade 1 that I remember. I’m not one for analyzing dreams, but as for the memories we keep… there must be a reason for those, right?