A Chronicle of Failings

One day when I was eleven, I had the chance to prove to everyone how smart I was. I even got to do this on a podium, so it was nice and official.

I had breezed through my school’s spelling bee, into the finals, when my opponent missed his word. He slumped past me, fully expecting me to pluck the win from the judges’ notecards. I looked up from my fingernails long enough to give him a “can’t win ‘em all” conciliatory nod, and mentally prepared myself for the forthcoming win.

Of the faces I recognized in the audience, several were my bandmates’. I was a saxophone player, and was the best despite the fact that I never practiced–something I took pride in. Like with everything else I did in school, I thought effort was for dumb people. I hadn’t chosen the saxophone because of my love for jazz, I chose it because it was the most expensive instrument available.

So you can imagine my delirium when the judge calmly stated: “Your word is…saxophone.”

The laughter was like a brush fire. The children had just learned “irony,” and once they explained their giggling to their friends and parents, the whole audience was aware pretty quickly. I laughed too, smiling like Barry Bonds might if he were asked–in total seriousness–to play Tee Ball.

Do I even need to tell you what happened next?

“…I’m sorry, that’s incorrect.”

For a moment, there was total silence, except for maybe the sound of my organs digesting themselves.

Then the laughter returned.

Humility is an important life lesson, one the gods saw fit to teach me with shock and awe. Can you imagine? I was smart, and I played saxophone. That was me in sixth grade. As B.R. said in Thank You for Smoking, “I just cannot imagine a way in which you could’ve fucked up more.”

Needless to say, I was upset. My parents consoled me in their respective ways:

-Mom bought me an enormous “SECOND PLACE” award statue.
-Dad informed me that he had skipped over that word while quizzing me, “for obvious reasons.”

We define ourselves by moments like this. But you can’t plot a line with a single point, and your life’s history is not dictated by a single moment. No matter how hard you try. Despite my efforts to hold onto the depression this event generated like a warm, reassuring blanket, it eventually dissipated, and then I laughed just as hard as everyone else. And trust me, the gods weren’t done–not by a long a shot. That’s why this is a chronicle. By the end of it, you get to ask yourself, “have I failed as ridiculously, monumentally, and sustainedly as Ian Claudius?”

No? Go try.

Your defining moment sucks? Make another one.