A few years ago, when my friends and I were complete bone heads, we made a very stupid decision. My friends and I made our neighbor very angry. Then, we made it even worse by running away. The lesson I learned from this event is, if you make a wrong decision, face it, and don’t hang out with people that will make you do the wrong thing.

This story began one weekend when my friends and I were having fun outside. In our backyard my dad had just built a brand new office space. To make this space they had to bring a backhoe into our yard. It made the backyard very muddy. After it had all dried, there were big chunks of mud everywhere that were easy to throw.

One of the many friends with me that day, decided to throw one at my fence. We all started to do the same. Then, one of my friends threw one at the house behind the fence and it exploded. Being younger, we all thought that was very cool. So we all started throwing mud at the house. A little later someone nailed a window on the house and burst out laughing. Then the neighbor ran out. He was very angry and asked us why we were doing that. As soon as he walked out, all my friends ran away. I hesitated to follow, but I did.

We all ran to our other friend’s backyard. They had a tree perfect for climbing, so we all climbed up. We were talking about it and we all thought we were in the clear. At this time, my parents were outside doing yardwork. Apparently, the neighbor came down to talk to a parent. Back at the tree, my friends asked me to go see if we were safe. I was walking out of the yard, when I saw my dad and the neighbor standing right outside the gate talking. I sprinted back to the tree and my dad didn’t see me. I went and told my friends that we were all dead.
We stayed there a little longer, awaiting our doom. Then my friend’s mom walked back and told us we needed to come out and talk. They told us what we did was not ok, and we had to go and apologize to the neighbor. As we took the walk of humiliation around the block, we questioned our choices. Luckily, when we apologized, the neighbor took it as no big deal. We didn’t have to pay for anything or clean off the window or the side of the house. Then my parents took me in the house, and we had a two-on-one conversation. This was ten times worse than the two minute talk they had with me outside. Long story short, I was grounded for a long time.

The lesson I learned was a valuable one. You shouldn’t run from your problems and just say you're sorry. I have a feeling that if I would have said sorry when the neighbor came out into his backyard, the situation would have been a lot better. My parents might not have gotten involved. This also taught me that my friends really influence me. At first I thought this was a dumb decision, but since my friends were doing it, I followed along. Use my mistake as a lesson. Hang out with the right people and face your consequences.