She had already reminded me twice, but each time I reassured her that I had it covered. I was a big girl now, almost seven, dressed in my frilly red and white spotted bikini and cover up, and I was positive that I could handle the responsibility of my orca goggles. I was on my way to a swim lesson up at the pool, and I quickly grabbed my flip flops and waited for my Mom at the door. I played with my thin blonde hair for a second, then smiled at my bright green toenails. I quickly got bored though, and a thought blossomed in my head. “What if I don’t bring my goggles? That’ll be so much fun! Plus my snowboots look kinda lonely.” My seven year old brain decided to purposely not bring my goggles as an act of rebellion. As I hid the goggles in my snowboots, and my Mom said,
“Are you ready for swim honey?”.
“Yes!” I replied in a hurry.
“Did you remember to-”
“Yes Mom! Now let’s go already!” As soon as the words left my overly glossed lips, I felt a tug in my gut. This was the first time I had ever lied to my Mom, and I felt a little bad. But I skipped out the door and into my car seat, the feeling in my gut already long gone.
As I leaned my head against the car window, I recalled an event that had happened last time on the way to swim lessons. I had been in the same position I was now, my head leaning against the window, mindlessly staring into the world outside the window. Suddenly, red and blue flashing lights caught my eye. “Mom, what are the police doing? Did they catch a bad guy? Is he going to jail?” I quickly questioned.
“You’re really close Lilli, but this time the police pulled a car over because the driver was doing something dangerous, like going to fast.” She explained.
“Oh okay Mom.”
A familiar sign pulled me out of the memory and back to the present. My Mom and I walked hand in hand into the steamy indoor pool, and she helped me get my cover up off and  my gigantic arm floaties on. “I feel like an astronaut, and my floaties are my space suit!” I thought to myself. We walked over to the steps that dropped into the kiddie pool, where a rainbow of frilly bikinis and floaties lurked like . The swim teacher , whose face vaguely resembled the Genie from Aladdin, smiled and reached out her arms to help me into the pool. “Mom didn’t notice that my goggles are still at home. Everyone else has their goggles though... maybe I should of bought mine.” As I was debating whether or whether not ‘forgetting’  the goggles was a bad idea, my Mom remembered.
“Lilli, where are your orca goggles?” I looked up at her and the feeling in my gut returned, and it felt like a rock the size of my fist had been dropped in mygut.
“Lilli...Did you forget them?”
“No, my snowboots just wanted to have a friend! They were lonely!”
“But...What?” She looked at me and I said nothing, but the rock in my gut decided to become as heavy as an elephant. Without saying a word to me, she questioned the swim instructor.
“Excuse me, do you have any extra pairs of goggles in here?”
“Yeah in lost in found; it’s in the main lobby.” She replied casually.
As we walked through the doors and away to the lobby, my Mom opened the door for me and held my hand as she helped me up the obnoxiously large step. She looked at me and said, “Lilli, remember last time we were driving here to swim lessons and we saw the car that the police pulled over? The reason the car got pulled over was because he didn’t listen to the police and the rules. Now, something bad, like a long time-out, could happen to the driver because they didn’t listen. Today, you didn’t listen and left your goggles at home, and that’s not a good thing. If you keep doing things like this, something bad could happen to you too, and we can’t have that, can we?”. I looked up at her and replied,
“I’m sorry Mom.”.
“It’s okay, just remember this next time, capiche?”
“Capiche.”  I replied, the elephant in my gut utterly gone.