When I was about eight years old, I had the greatest job in the world.
I was a professional bed-jumper.
At least, that's what it felt like.
One Saturday afternoon, my parents had gone out for a few errands, and I had the house all to myself. The moment the front door closed, I raced to my room.
Boing!
Boing!
BOING!
I bounced higher and higher on my bed. In my imagination, I wasn't just a kid. I was a superhero leaping over buildings. Then I was a astronaut on the moon.
I launched myself into my spacecraft and...
CRASH!!!
A thunderous noise exploded somewhere in the house.
I froze.
My heart started.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
What was that?
Had I broken the bed?
But it feels alright and the sound seemed to come from another room.
I slowly climbed off the bed.
The house suddenly felt very quiet.
Too quiet.
I tiptoed into the hallway.
Every step seemed louder than usual.
I slowly walked towards the kitchen.
At the kitchen doorway, I saw stones scattered all over the floor.
I blinked.
Stones?
Did I jump so hard that rocks fell from the sky?
Did I accidentally cause a tiny earthquake?
My eyes shot to the ceiling.
It wasn't broken.
Now I was completely confused.
Carefully, I stepped into the kitchen.
Then I noticed a perfectly round hole in the wall.
Not a crack.
Not a dent.
A hole.
A real hole.
About as big as my face.
And inside that hole were two eyes.
Perfectly round eyes.
Wide eyes.
Very shocked eyes.
The eyes stared at me.
I stared at the eyes.
The eyes blinked.
I blinked.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then a nervous voice floated through the hole.
"Uh..."
Pause.
"I just wanted to hammer in a nail."
It was our neighbor.
Apparently, he had been hanging a shelf in his house. Unfortunately, he had somehow hammered much harder than anyone in history.
The hammering had created a brand-new mini window between our homes.
The scattered stones on the floor were pieces of the wall.
I burst out laughing.
Over the next few days, he came over many times to repair the damage. He patched the hole, painted the wall, cleaned up every last bit of dust, and apologized at least twenty times.
"I am so, so, SO sorry,"
But something unexpected happened.
Each time he came over, we talked.
He told funny stories about things he had accidentally broken and his other childhood adventures.
I told him about my astronaut dream to goto the moon and beyond.
Soon we were laughing every time we saw each other.
Years later, whenever we remembered that day, he would grin and say, "I was only trying to hammer in one tiny nail!"
And I would reply, "You nearly built a doorway instead!"
The hole disappeared long ago.
But the friendship it created lasted much longer.
Moral
Sometimes mistakes can lead to unexpected friendships. When people are honest, willing to apologize, and ready to laugh together, even a problem can become the beginning of something good.
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