Character Flaws

I was at school talking to one of the teachers and he was very excited about a new comic book for Captain America. Apparently (spoiler alert) Captain America was a deep undercover spy for the bad guy. When I asked him why he liked this so much, he said that Captain America had always been too perfect and too good in his opinion. He liked that he had a character flaw.

After that I thought about my own flaws. Maybe our flaws are not always bad. Maybe they make us more real and relatable for other people. With that in mind, I am going to share one of my major character flaws with some examples. (spoiler alert) I don't always think things through all the way. Unfortunately, both my examples have to do with the same garage.

I dropped my daughter off at school and had a few minutes before I had to be back at the middle school for work. Since I had forgotten my gum at home and I love chewing gum, I ran home to get it. I pulled into the driveway and stopped. I got a text message at that moment and looked at it and responded. Since the garage door was no longer working, I had to get out of the car and run to the front to get inside. I got out of the car and ran around to go to the front. Only then did I remember that I forgot to put the car in park. I watched as the car rolled forward and rammed into the garage door. I ran back to the car and put it in reverse and parked it. However, the damage was already done. The hardest part of this incident was having to go the real estate company we rent from and telling them what happened. I don't think the gum was worth all that.

Then yesterday happened. The power was out. Which prevented me from finishing my exercise video and was ruining my whole chicken in the crock pot. We had planned to go clean the church and I figured we would take the crock pot with us and finish cooking it there. (The garage has since been fixed and replaced and works beautifully now.) We were running late to meet my husband, John and I was stressed about the chicken. We ran out to the car and it was pouring rain. I got my girls and the chicken in the car and went to close the garage. Since the power was out, I had to close it manually. Now our garage door is flat with no handles to pull on. So I put my fingers in the grooves between panels so I could grab the door and pull it down. Down it went and the grooves shut on the three middle fingers of my right hand. I yelped  "Ouch" and stared at my fingers being pinched. (Another flaw I have is that I process things very slowly and do not have quick reactions.) I could see Celia in the car with her hands covering her mouth starting to freak out. After a half a minute, I realized that I would have to push the door up with my other hand to let my fingers out. So I did that and then I finished shutting the garage door and got into the car.

The pain was mind numbing and I was wet from the rain. My daughters were screaming and crying in the car asking what happened and was I ok. I threw the keys at my oldest and told her to call her father. When he asked to speak to me I simply said, "I feel nauseous." I broke out in a sweat and my head was spinning with nausea and pain. Celia turned on the car for me and some music and turned up the air conditioning. I was so hot and nauseous. The fingernail on the middle finger of my right hand had a blue line on it and the back was dented in. I sat there with my head slumped over the steering wheel unable to calm my very upset children and waited. 

John, ever the clear thinker in an emergency, called Celia and told her to get me an ice pack. She returned with one of those home made rice packs we keep in the freezer. The sheer weight of it caused me more pain than I care to remember, but I knew it was necessary. Shortly after that, John arrived and I was still so unclear about what to do.  John grabbed the crock pot and set it outside of our garage (the ruined chicken still haunts me). I got into the front passenger seat and Celia called a friend to go over their house. John drove the girls there and me to the emergency room. In the end, I broke the top part of my middle finger on my right hand. Much of the time when I could react at all, I was laughing at my own stupidity, but I did cry when the PA squeezed it to figure out where the pain was.

So if my character flaws have now endeared me to you, then think about that next time you notice a flaw in yourself. It keeps you real and gives you something to work on. Flaws can truly be good things.