A Venetian Fiasco — 1974
On numerous occasions, I have made ridiculous choices which brought embarrassment and/or disappointment into my life, but none of those poor choices was more inappropriate or ill-advised than the one in the following incident.
During my six-month semester abroad experience, our group had the opportunity to visit several European countries. We had planned an afternoon on the beach of the Adriatic Sea during our stay in Venice, Italy. We left from our hostel and headed to the beach full of enthusiasm and excitement. Our excitement waned as we arrived and discovered that the beach was completely fenced off and could only be reached by paying an exorbitant “entry fee” at a nearby gateway. The beach was fenced off in both directions as far as we could see. Myself and the other male students were incensed. “You are going to make us PAY to swim in a sea? No way!” we blustered.
While the young ladies in our group were deliberating over this dilemma, we “men” decided to circumvent this preposterous Italian insanity. We all walked away from the entry gate several hundred feet, following the fence line, and then deftly vaulted over the fence, having already thrown our towels and sunscreen over. Almost immediately, we were surrounded by beach guards and watchmen, who unceremoniously marched us back to the gate and ejected us from the beachfront. The impropriety of our actions was instantly obvious, and our humiliation was complete as we realized that the young women in our group had witnessed the entire debacle. All of us were returned missionaries, supposedly setting an example of honesty and decorum for these our young sisters. What a laugh! They were justifiably appalled at our behavior, and let us know of their disgust. I was profoundly ashamed of myself. My example that day was “If you don’t agree with a rule or a law, find a way around it!” As I remember, we apologized to the girls, but their respect for us was severely diminished. To re-phrase a familiar scripture, “By small and seemingly insignificant poor choices can great amounts of damage be done.”
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