When I was a kid my father's uncle bought me a ukulele. I don't know why.
One afternoon, when my cousins were visiting (they lived in Indiana), I was playing in the backyard* and my cousin came walking down the driveway** with my ukulele. He was kind of strumming it and singing. For some reason I got angry that he was playing my ukulele. It shouldn't have bothered me since my parents brought my sister and me up to share toys. But it did bother me. I ran to my cousin, screaming at him, and tried to grab the uke from his hands.
In the ensuing struggle, the ukulele broke. I was furious and blamed him; if he hadn't taken it, it wouldn't have broken. And if he had let it go when I tried to grab it from him, it wouldn't have broken. No one else saw it from my perspective. Everyone else tried to tell me that he had done nothing wrong. And if I hadn't tried to grab the instrument from him it wouldn't have broken. The way everyone saw it, it was my fault.
And everyone else was right. I'm sorry, Stephen.
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*Actually, Mrs. Consoli's backyard. Mrs. Consoli lived next door to us. There was no fence or hedgerow between yards, so Mrs. Consoli let us play in hers as if the two yards were one big one.
**Actually, Mrs. Consoli's driveway.
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