Keeping Mediocrity Alive

As a self proclaimed expert on mediocrity it shouldn't really surprise me when people aren't all that impressed by me.  It's not like I don't try, I'm just regularly upstaged.  Like in 5th grade when we had a cake decorating contest.  I thought, "Dude, I've GOT this."  Because I made a cake in the shape of a BAND-AID!  And surely nobody else was going to think of that, and if they did I bet they didn't make their cake from SCRATCH let alone use highly evolved tools like a toothpick to add texture, and who doesn't like to think about scabs and neosporin when biting down on a nice layer of buttercream anyway?  Like I said, I had this in the bag.

What I hadn't counted on was the castle cake.  Needless to say, sugar cone towers swathed in sparkly, blue sugar quickly relegated the band-aid cake to the honorable mention table.  My cake wasn't bad, it just wasn't the best.  Which was okay, it probably prepared me to ride the bench throughout my high school basketball career.  Which reminds me, the bench?  WHERE THE MEDIOCRE PEOPLE GO.  People like me were the ones who got invited to the party with the new Dutch exchange student who was cuter than a pillow pet at a carnival, but the Friday night one-on-one date always went to the starting forward, no matter how good I was at burping the alphabet to try and impress him.

At any rate, I like to think of this blog as an avenue for embracing my mediocrity, a place where I can say, "I never took a high school AP class and still got several B's," and you might like me anyway.  A place where I can vent about being voted the 'Just Happy To Be Here' award at Girls' Camp in 1983, which I am still bitter about.  I mean, really?  "Just Happy To Be Here?!"  That's the award for the girl who takes to macrame like Octa-Mom to the tabloids, declines your licorice in favor of the trail mix she brought from home, and reads Sci-Fi novels during her free time instead of playing cards and saran wrapping the toilet seats.  It's the laziest award I've ever received and that's coming from someone who got a green participation ribbon at her 4th grade track meet. 

But I'm evolved now.  Somehow blogging about mediocrity makes me feel more powerful, which is why I can share the following story with pride.  About a month ago I was asked to take over the teaching of a Sunday School class full of 9 and 10-year-olds at church.  I said yes, despite knowing that their previous teacher was a stellar overachiever who pored over her lessons for hours and then brought treats to the class in the form of chocolate covered cake balls on a stick.  She was awesome, and the kids LOVED her.  I showed up on week one with an object lesson and a few Skittles and thought I nailed it - the next week I got this note from one of my new students:

 I think I'm going to frame it.