I do not have a very good recollection of my preschool years. The few things that I remember or have been told by my family throughout the years do not exactly bode well for anyone’s view on my personality. Among other awful things, I cursed at one of my peers about eating his sandwich, threw a giant plastic brick at a friend’s head, was yelled at many times to go to sleep during naptime, and overall participated in what many would think to be criminal behavior in the time of sippy cups and diapers. To top it all off, the place that let me get away with these wicked deeds was not just your average preschool; it was led by a nearby church.
With this mixed bag of occurrences fresh in your mind, allow me to tell you the story of when a teacher quite literally bashed my little head in.

I suppose the event was, in part, due to my flawed and naive mental processing. Naptime in the big kids room. As I mentioned earlier, naptime is definitely not my strong suit. The minutes leading up to the dreaded time were often an intense power struggle. I fought to rebel against the evil naptime dictator that, despite what you may think, was not my teacher. Instead, I was reprimanded a young lady hardly a year older than me, who yelled for me to pull out my mat and get to sleep immediately.

  Eventually, I was forced to succumb to the pressures of society and ended up waddling my tiny legs over to the teacher’s desk to throw my mat down in despair. The teacher sat in her wooden chair, enjoying a nice cup of midday coffee while the dictator did her bidding. With a sigh, I planted my curly angry blond head on the mat, no doubt contemplating all of the trials and tribulations of this era in human civilization. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I probably had my mind on something like apple juice or the latest episode of  “Thomas the Tank Engine”.

Whatever the thought was, it managed to lull me into a deep and restful sleep, devoid of any authority or challenged power, perfect peace until...

BAM!

I awoke to the smell of leftover coffee beans all around me as I writhed in pain and agony, clutching my damaged skull. The coffee mug, my ceramic assailant, rolled to the ground beside me. My teacher, glad that she had finished off the coffee before almost killing me, knelt at my side, clutching what was most likely a flip phone in her hand. Dazed and upset, I begged for freedom, knowing that it was all my fault. She didn’t mean to maim one of her students, I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It turns out the baseball sized lump on my head didn’t end up killing me. After my parents were called, I was picked up and taken to seek medical attention. It’s all a blur now, but I learned several valuable lessons. For instance, never nap near the teacher’s desk. It’s a simple mantra that I still follow to this day, even if it is for different reasons. The fiasco also makes for a pretty good story, one I have told many times to prove that I have an event to blame for pretty much any failure in my life. In closing, a wise monk once said that good things come from falling coffee mugs. Words to live by.