A few days ago, I had one of the cutest, funniest, and just a little sad things happen that I've experienced in quite a while. Some of you know that I've been dealing with an injury to my rotator cuff. After several doctor visits and a few weeks of physical therapy, it's not really getting much better. A little, but not as quickly as I'd like.
The doctor told me that I really need to rest my arm, not to use my shoulder so much. When I asked him about riding my bike and motorcycle, and about playing guitar, he said those were all okay activities. That kind of surprised me and flies in the face of what I know it traditionally done for this type of injury, so I've been limiting all of those a bit. Heck, being honest, I haven't been on my bicycle in more months than I'm willing to admit here. But I have been riding my motorcycle some and playing guitar for church and a little practice.
In order to consciously try to give my shoulder the rest it needs to try to heal, I started wearing a sling this week. Just around our property. When I go out, the sling comes off. The sling is a constant reminder to try not to use my arm so much. I think it's helping some.
Yes, I'm getting to the crux of my story. Really.
On Thursday morning I went to the school office to check on some things. While I was there, I saw a young girl, about 6 or 7 years old, taking her entrance test. (New kids enrolling in the school need to take a test to make sure they are put in the proper grade level if they haven't been attending here from the beginning of their school years.) I watched her for a few seconds and almost instantly sized her up as pretty classic ADHD: Get up, sit down, look at this, look at that, write for two seconds, comment about the buttons on the teacher's blouse, etc..
As I walked into that room, the girl looked up at me, through her little glasses, and said, "Oooh, show me your arm" in perfect English. So I did. I slid the sling back and extended my arm. Her eyes got huge and she said, "But your arm isn't broken." Then, before I could reply, she added, "Oh, I know. You're just pretending to be poor." She said it so matter-of-factly, so innocently. I tried telling her that, no, my arm isn't broken, that I need to rest my shoulder, but my explanation fell on deaf ears as she was already commenting about something else that caught her attention.
I tried to bring her back on task, asking for her name: Isabel. I introduced myself to Isabel and then told her that she needed to listen to the instructions her teacher was giving her. "OK, I will, but you're sure your arm's really not broken?" "I'm sure, Isabel. Now, please pay attention to Miss Yami and finish your pages."
Back out in the main office, I started laughing as I looked out the window, recalling the brief conversation I just had with Isabel. "You're just pretending to be poor." The words echoed in my head and I found myself laughing out loud. Let's face it; that's pretty darn funny.
And just a little sad. It's sad that a tiny girl has experienced enough of the world to know that there are people who fake an injury in order to beg money.
They're just pretending to be poor...
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