The Cover Up Is Worse Than The Crime (The Friday Ficks S5 E13)

"Go! Go! Go! They're after us!"

"They" were the police. "Us" - three 12-year-old boys, a summer night in 1975, and a misguided mission: pelting cars with rotten tomatoes.

It started as harmless mischief, a farcical cocktail of boredom, bad ideas, and faux bravery. Off we went to have some fun, and while heading home after unleashing our barrage, we hit the gauntlet.

Unbeknownst to us, the police weren’t chasing tomato-throwing hooligans. They were responding to a burglary down the street. But we thought they were after us.

Panic. Flight mode. We tore through backyards, running scared, hearts pounding, sirens wailing. We crammed ourselves beneath an old car in a friend’s garage, faces pressed to the concrete as police radios crackled nearby. Fear and bile ascending, confidence in our escape descending.

We got away. And by extension, I avoided having to explain any of this to my father.

Until three years later.

A high school English assignment - “Mistaken Identity.” Thinking enough time had passed, I wrote about our great tomato escape. It earned me a top grade.

Sweet victory.

But then my teacher ran into my dad at the store. Complimented him on my writing. And my sprinting ability.

Not so sweet.

Once again, the cover-up proved worse than the crime.

And that brings me to this - ignoring your health isn’t a crime. But covering it up? Saying you will, but you don’t? Saying you have, but you haven’t? That might be worse.

Because if you’re not healthy enough to show up for the ones you love, for the people who need you - then what’s the point?

Own the day. Own the weekend.

Carl