The Good Samaritan (Originally posted 4/30/09)

Getting something stolen from you is one of the worst feelings in the world. When you realize that something is missing you run through all the different places it could be in your mind. When you finally settle on somebody must have taken it, its a slug to the chest. You are naked, exposed, they got you and you didn't think they ever would have.

 Thats how this story begins. You see we were on a basketball tournament and it was my senior year of high school. Somebody decided to jack my thirty dollars that my mom had given me to get snacks and stuff. So there I was sitting in the Southwestern cafeteria after church with no money.
Sometimes when you have no money you do stupid stuff to get money. This was one of those moments.

At that time in our lives we thought that tripping on purpose in front of a whole bunch of people was the funniest thing to do. Now that sounds strange so let me help you understand my high school. Every year there was a new fad that the whole school followed. My sophomore year it was taking people's "cool points" when they had a bad joke. We did this by saying "lost" and holding our hand out. My junior year was the "deez nuts" and "dry jokes" year. By my senior year we had moved to tripping on purpose. What would happen is one of my buddies would fall down really hard in front of a huge crowd of people. They would all laugh cause that is what kids do. But the real joke was for us because we knew it was an act. If it looked real and was really loud it was that much better.

 Now its after church and we are all getting a little restless. And when kids get restless they try to convince other kids to do something stupid that they would not do. This is the point were my buddy says "Rich you got to trip in front of all of these people". There were probably about 500 students in the cafeteria at that time. "Naw dude" was my reply. "I'll do it for thirty bucks" was my next response. Thats what you say when don't want to do something. You just say that you will do it for an amount of money that you are sure that a bunch of teenagers could not put together. But I was wrong. Like I have mentioned earlier someone had D bowed my thirty dollars so there was money swirling around my friends that I did not know about. Plus they got with another academy in the cafeteria and began pooling money to get me to trip on purpose.

 It started to get really real really fast. My buddy came back and said "Alright we got your thirty bucks but you have to trip and fall into a bunch of food". "No way dude. Thats too much". We bargained a little more and finally we settled on me getting the thirty bucks if I fell into a salad filled with ranch dressing. Was I actually goin to do this. Now we had about twenty kids around trying to get me to do it. There was only two people trying to stop me. My sister and my girlfriend. My sister looked at me and said "don't do it buddy". My girlfriend said "I don't think this is a good idea". They were not as convincing as the twenty guys telling me it would be the funniest thing they had ever seen in their lives.

 The moment of truth came and I decided that I was going to be the cool guy and do it. Now that I am a little older I see that instead of being the cool guy that I thought I was for doin this I was actually the sucker who embarrasses himself in front of a bunch of people only to get paid back from the money that was stolen from him. Hind sight is twenty twenty.

I got up and went to the salad bar and I filled a bowl with a bunch of lettuce and tons of creamy ranch dressing. I looked at my group of friends and they were sitting close to the entrance of the cafeteria. I walked toward them and as I got closer I picked up speed. When I got really close to them I clipped my backfoot with my front foot and tripped myself. Now in order to really pull it off and get the bigggest laugh your trip has to be authentic. If it looks fake its not as funny. So whenever I did trip on purpose I sold it like a used car salesman. On my way down to the ground I smashed the salad all over my face. I landed hard on my elbow . It felt like every inch of my face was covered with ranch dressing. The whole cafeteria seemed to stop. I got on my knees and everyone was able to see my face. The cafeteria erupted in laughter and everyone was pointing at me. To add dramatic effect I cried for a napkin. "Someone please give me a napkin." All of a sudden out of nowhere a man ran to my side and started yelling at the crowd. "Stop laughing! Stop laughing! Are you ok?" I had never seen this man in my whole life. He looked really sad that I had fallen down. I just wanted him disapear or me to disapear. My buddies were running up to me with cash in their hands. The last thing I wanted was for the man to know that this was set up. I pushed my friends away while this gentleman was grabbing napkins from a nearby table. This guy was the nicest guy I had ever ran into and I felt like a jerk. After I cleaned myself up I thanked the guy and he went away. I felt like I was lying to his face.

 The after math got ugly. One of the parents that came to watch his son chewed me out in front of all of my friends. It didn't help that I was a ball hog and never passed to his son. I tried to explain my self but he just told me to shut up. I wasn't allowed to play in the first half of the next game. Every once in a while I am reminded about this guy. Not only did he come to the rescue but he did it when it was the least popular thing to do. Its been eight years since this happened and I no longer have a clear picture of what this guy looked like in my head but I do know that I want to be like him the next time I get put in a similar situation. And who knows I might be in the position to actually help someone.