Sod v. Grass

So, new sod was laid in between the education building (where I live) and the parking lot (where my car lives) last fall. There used to be fences and trees and all manner of yuckiness between said lot and said building. So, instead of getting to class 5 minutes late by walking as the crow flies (the shortest distance between two points is a straight line) I had to walk all the way around another building (the not as shortest distance between two points is detouring to four other points on the way)... grrr... So, one day I was running behind and I decided to cut through the freshly laid path for me to get there. There may have been an inconspicuous NEON sign placed off to one side (read: "smack in the middle of") the line of grass that said something like (exactly these words), "New Sod: Do not walk on until April." Well, like I says, I was in a hurry so I walked on. Close to clearing the line o' sod on the other side, a little grounds keeping man in his red golf cart thing rides by and says, in kind of a patronizing older man who is reprimanding but also being friendly to the cute little girl way, "Ya know, you're not supposed to walk on that yet?" I match his tone, and take with an equally friendly and playful one and make sheepish grin as sweet as can be, raise my eybrows all surprised like, and put my hand over my "O" shaped mouth and say, "Oh! I won't do it again... I promise!"

I promise is a funny phrase when it goes out to someone with whom it is likely you will never cross paths again. A few days pass of being on time and I go my normal way without thinking a thing of it. Then comes a day of testing. I am running behind and cutting will put me on time and not cutting will make me late. No one is in sight and no one will know and one pair of feet won't hurt the stinking sod. Had it just been a sign, and there are lots of those "Advisory" type signs that don't feel too important, it wouldn't have been a big deal... but I had said those two words, "I promise!" Even in a light and joking way, they had been said... and while little man with red cart was not there too see, I'd know. Yes I would. And, even in that split second of decision, I know that some day I'll be teaching a child or a group of young women and will want to be able to draw on a funny little honesty story so I decide right then and there to make this that story. I go around, smiling all the way. And I continue to go around all fall and all winter.
It is now April. I walk on the grass. And I smile a smirk of a smile. I smile knowing I did a funny/insignificant but completely right thing and I know that someday my great grand daughter (Claire) will love hearing that story and we will roll around in the grass and I will be bare foot, wearing a plaid gardening shirt and overalls, with a sun hat covering my long gray braids and she will wear a white summer dress with red cherries on it and her blond hair will be back in a pony-tale and her blue eyes will match the sky and we will eat cream puffs and drink ice cold raspberry lemonade and will be filled with the light and happy freshness of a clean conscience. Wow... wow... I may have run away with that for a minute... (That may also be a commercial for Tide or the ending of a future Nicholas Sparks movie but the imagery worked for me!)