Don’t Call On Me

In Spanish class during high school, I used to count. Not because I liked math, but because we were going one by one at the end of each chapter, and I wanted to have the answer ready before it got to me. If I was tenth, I’d start thinking about it around five or six, working through what I was going to say like I could somehow get ahead of it.

I’d be sitting there with the book open, looking like I was following along, but I wasn’t really reading anymore. I was already on my turn. Running the sentence through my head, tweaking it, making sure it sounded right. By the time it got to me, I had said it so many times internally that I was almost bored of it. Then I’d say it out loud and it still came out slightly off.

It showed up in other places too, just in different ways. I had an English teacher who called on people randomly, and participation was twenty percent of the grade, so there was no avoiding it. One time I gave an answer and she laughed. Not a big laugh, not the whole class piling on—just enough where I knew it didn’t go the way I thought it would.

I remember thinking she was cruel. Maybe she wasn’t trying to be, but it felt that way sitting there. I looked back down at my desk, acted like I was already thinking about the next question, and that was it. I didn’t stop paying attention, I just stopped volunteering. I stayed ready, just… quieter about it.

Years later, we’re at a luau for my birthday. My kids had invited friends and family, so there was no blending in. I knew exactly what was coming. You could feel it building before anything even started—the drums, the energy, the setup. I’m sitting there talking, smiling, doing what everyone else is doing, but in my head I’m already up there. Running it through again.

How I’ll stand, where I’ll look, how long it will last. None of it changes anything, but I still do it. Once it starts, it’s already happening and I’m part of it whether I want to be or not.

My brother handled it a little differently for me. We were at a youth ministry event with a few hundred kids, and I had just met a girl a few days before. Everyone knew we were a new item. We are maybe five minutes into the event and new to the whole girl thing I am trying to act like a "normal person" when he walks over, doesn’t say a word, and hands me a huge card with giant letters.

“Lust.”

Before I can even react, I’m being brought up in front of everyone, holding that card, officially representing the deadly sin of lust like this had been the plan all along. He’s gone immediately, of course. Just hands it off and disappears like he’s done something useful.

Looking back, I realize I always handle these situations in a pretty similar way. I start preparing early, even when there’s no real way to prepare. I try to get out ahead of it, like thinking it through will somehow give me a little control. It never does.

Which brings me to this weekend. The Greenland Sharks are going to one of those mentalist shows. Small room, maybe forty seats, the kind of place where if someone’s getting called up, there’s nowhere to hide and no confusion about who it is. I’ll be sitting there, looking relaxed, maybe even laughing along with everyone else, but part of me will already be running through it. Getting ready for the moment where it shifts and suddenly I’m involved.

It’s the same thing I’ve always done. I’ve already started counting.