If you haven’t heard it yet, the Snatch soundtrack is amazing. An odd mix that flows nicely.
But, music is not the topic of the day. Fairness and its ultimate misinterpretation by little girls is the topic du jour. You may ask yourself how a geek like me would have any knowledge of this topic. You would be wise to question. How do I know? Well, I’m a church-going fellow (don’t ask me why, don’t know myself sometimes). Since I’m a Mormon, that means I get called by God to do certain things. My current calling is to teach Primary. For the un-Mormonified, Primary is little kids’ Sunday School. I’m a teacher. Who do I teach? I teach the 7 year-olds who will turn 8 during this calendar year. I have six little girls in my class and they drive me nuts. I don’t understand little girls. They’re so fragile emotionally. They have these weird ideas about “fair” and right and wrong that just drive me nuts.
I normally wouldn’t even talk about here, but I made one of them cry yesterday. I tried and tried not to have to, but there was nothing I could do. In Primary, we have Opening Exercises where, each week, a different class is assigned to give the prayer, read the scripture for the month and give two little talks on a certain topic. The little Primary leaders give me four slips of paper, and I go to my class and ask for volunteers. Usually, it’s like pulling teeth to get people to volunteer. This week, four little hands went up when I asked who wanted to give the talks. How am I supposed to handle this? Should I ask for divine inspiration?
We had a Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament to decide. Two brackets and then a final to determine talk giver #1, then take volunteers for talk #2 and repeat the process. Since this was the first time we’ve had to assign talks with this class, I figured, hey, this is fair. Right? It’s a game of chance, the girls actually do the deciding by their luck and skill at Rock, Paper, Scissors (no wild tanks or airstrikes – was I the only one who played that way?).
When the smoke cleared, four little girls had something to do next week, and one didn’t. There were four things to be assigned, and 5 little girls who wanted to be involved. Someone was going to be left out. The left out little girl started sobbing that she didn’t have anything to do, and that she sat out LAST time. I tried to explain that I wasn’t the teacher last time, and that the other girls said she wasn’t left out last time. There was no convincing her of the method of my madness. So, I gave up, and went on with my lesson about Noah and his amazing stinky, pitchy, three story, livestock laden ark. I didn’t get very far before she started wailing again about the unfairness of it all. I lost it. Now, to be clear, she was already crying. I turned to her and said, “Look, you need to go look up ‘fair’ in the dictionary. This is completely fair and impartial. I’m not picking on you. You had the same chance to be able to give a talk as everyone else. I had no empirical data about what happened last year, because I wasn’t your teacher. I am writing down who did what this time, and next time, those who didn’t give a talk this time and want to next time will be given first dibs. If that’s not good enough for you, I’m sorry. Life just isn’t fair. The sooner you realize that fact, the easier life will be.”
Did I do the wrong thing? Am I a bad person for pointing out the obvious?