Pre-Paid Punishments

My friend Jimena was probably 8 years old when Miss Rosita punished her for the first time. Jimena was to remain in the classroom after class writing 200 lines of the accusatory sentence: “I must not speak in class.” The school bus came and picked us up at four in the afternoon and we all went home except for Jimena. The next day I found Jimena filling more pages and she continued to do so for several recesses there after. Jimena was accumulating pages in order to have them ready for the next time she was punished. As a cautious and astute young girl, Jimena had prepared pages for all kinds of likely misbehavior:

-I must not speak in class.

-I must not leave my slips on the floor.

-I must not let the dog eat my homework.

-I will never throw up my lunch.

-I will not forget my books at the corner shop.

-I will not pull on Lupita’s pony tails.

-I will not wink at professor Cervantes.

Jimena was so busy writing pre-paid punishments that she no longer had time to misbehave. She was completely absorbed by the saving up of punishments.

To pre-pay for future misbehaviors has its advantages. To have a reserve of pre-paid punishments allows us to misbehave in abundance and not face immediate consequences. What’s more, pre-paid punishments make us righteous. Jimena grew so much in stature, since she no longer had time to misbehave and instead spent all her time filling pages and studying, that she became valedictorian of the high school class of ’62.

It occurs to me that life sometimes punishes us cruelly and we find ourselves without lines to turn in, in order to escape the punishment quickly. There are days where nothing goes right: there is a traffic jam, our husband leaves us, we get mugged at the supermarket without having found eggs to buy, we get infected with a bout of malaria that does not respond to compresses of merthiolate or sprinkles of holy water.

Is this the reason governments go from bad to worse? Is it that governments represent pre-paid punishments and that in the future we will be free of the tyranny of incompetence, waste and abuse? Are we pre-paying for the great leaders set to appear in the future, when honest, serious and dedicated students take on the task of governing with intelligence, respect, and skill?

Last Tuesday I ran into Jimena and I asked her if she still had any pre-paid punishments. She laughed and told me, serious and resigned: “I have a thousand pages that state that I will never vote for a candidate that promises to give me anything for free”. And why haven’t you used them Jimena, since we are all involved in this punishment? Jimena answered me: “Oh friend, I haven’t been able to use them because no one, not even Miss Rosita has asked me for them.” “By God Jimena, give me the pages and feel free to vote for whomever you think is serious and willing. Give me five hundred and go in peace.” I have papered the bathroom wall with Jimena’s pages so that I never forget that pre-paid punishments give flight to the imagination of the innocent and turn them into drawers sinners, who are the bravest and go the farthest in their restraint, because closet sinners come out of the closet from time to time and run for political office.