The Cupcake Transgression
Jim Elliff
After we moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where my father would become the pastor of Bethany Baptist Church (1952-60), I began my school career. From kindergarten to MDiv degree took 17 years. At the beginning of that first year I was chosen, along with JoAnn, my classmate, to pull the wagon full of sleeping mats leading the way for the rest of the class into the brand new kindergarten addition. Miss Taylor, one of my favorites, was our teacher.
My years at Gladstone Elementary were memorable perhaps mostly for the kindness of teachers, the fun at recess and those notable discipline experiences meant to shape my character. My teacher in Second grade wrote on the report card that I was an overachiever. I’m still not sure if that is a good or bad characteristic.
The principle flaw in my character was (or, perhaps “is”) thinking I am clever. That is, thoughts would enter into my mind that I thought needed expression, mostly by saying something I thought was funny. By this means I got to spend several times at the lost and found box during recess. Once, in fact, while in 5th grade, the principal sent me to spend recess with the kindergarteners in full site of the rest of the school for acting like a kindergartener. It made its mark.
Grade school otherwise included all the things typical for that era: the newspaper drives, the science projects (mine was a working volcano), piano class with a wooden imitation key board (not inspiring), 16 millimeter educational movies, report cards, valentine cards, a few feisty altercations, and kickball.
Among all that sounds familiar to my age category, is an experience of temptation and failure that I’m not able to forget. I was faced with a temptation that overcame me. I found myself for some reason in a vacant classroom. At least one other person wandered in, or maybe a few more, to see something I had never seen before. The temptation was the sight of a large number of cupcakes, perhaps 150 arranged with military precision on several tables which were awaiting a school-wide party or perhaps a teacher’s meeting, or who knows what. The cupcakes each had a swirl of icing on top that were calling my name.
Upon seeing this I had an Eden-like experience of temptation and fell miserably. My sin? I ate a swirl. I had no idea such a thing would be reported to the highest authorities. It was only a few moments later that Miss Hockaday herself, the towering platinum-haired principal of the school showed up in the room. When she walked down the halls her high heels make a distinct sound on the concrete, and her keys held by a small hanky rattled especially when she was on disciplinary business. She came in unannounced and went right for me.
I only remember one question she asked as she peered down sternly into my face. The question wasn’t so hard, I recalled later, but at the moment, you might as well have asked me “What is the theory of relativity?” I was frozen and could answer nothing. The question was, “What’s that on your shoulders!”
Now, I hadn’t taken much anatomy at that point, so you can understand my hesitation at first. But my hesitation lasted way too long, and no answer into my mind, so she took over answering the question herself. I was supposed to give the answer, “my head.” She informed me that she could not believe I would not use my head to know that doing such a thing as swiping icing from a cupcake that didn’t belong to me was not right. I don’t recall the punishment given to me, nor anything else from the conversation because I was isolated into a kind of alternate universe for a few moments, duly embarrassed and shocked that I had committed such a crime, and aware that I would never do that again. I’m sure, when my parents heard about it I went through more discipline from them, and made that inevitable call to the principal to express my sorrow and repentance, which was always part of their child training procedure. I’m glad they did it!
This wasn’t my last crime. As the Lord began to open my eyes, I saw that I was often sinning against God and others. My parents were helping me see that there are consequences for sin. They were consistent in emphasizing that. This became an inescapable reality to me on my way to becoming a believer in Christ. How thankful I am that my parents didn’t side with me against my authorities. I came later to appreciate the Moses-like rule of Miss Hockaday also. No one ever came to Christ to be delivered from sin without knowing that they were in desperate need of that deliverance.
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This is an excerpt from a future book entitled, The Stories I Tell.
Here is another in this series of autobiographical stories . . .”The Hole to Hell”