“We will either accuse ourselves or excuse ourselves.” — St. John Vianney
Due to a heavy blizzard in 4th grade, school ended at noon and we were allowed to go home early. My good friend and neighbor, Andy, invited me to go skiing with him and his family, but with my older brothers still in their high school and my mom teaching and dad at work, I realized that nobody was home and the house was locked. I really wanted to go skiing and I only had ten minutes to get ready…while trying to nudge the basement window open with my gloves, it suddenly cracked and broke apart. I climbed inside, grabbed my skis and tried to forget about this infraction on the slopes. Later, I looked my dad in the eyes and told him what had happened. He smiled and said, “Michael, the important thing is that you told the truth…you will need to pay for a replacement window, but it would have been much worse if you tried to justify yourself or deny it.”
