My Shoulder Angel and Devil

MY SHOULDER ANGEL AND DEVIL

They have always been with me, and they have always argued! Right from the beginning, bickering back and forth.

*****

“You should throw that at Mom.”

“Noooo. That’s mean!”

“But funny!”

“Noooo. You could hurt her.”

“Yeah, but still funny!”

SPLAT!

I started to laugh, but was quickly silenced by the look my mother gave me. She stared at me, surprised, and a bit angry.

“Alexandra! What do you think you’re doing?” She looked down at her shirt. “Why would you throw your food at me?” She put her hands on her hips. “You’re almost two years old, and you know better than to throw food. Mommy doesn’t like it when you throw food.” 

She whisked away my bowl of Spaghetti-Os as she walked over to the sink to wash the tomato sauce and little round pastas off of her shirt and out of her hair.

“I hope this doesn’t stain,” she said wiping furiously at her shirt.

“Her fault for feeding you Spaghetti-Os.”

“You love Spaghetti-Os. You shouldn’t have thrown them at her.”

“She’ll give you more. Just cry.”

 I thought about crying, but decided to save it for something important, like bedtime.  

“More!” I said, pointing at my unfinished lunch on the kitchen counter.  

Instead of returning my bowl of deliciousness, I got a piece of toast with peanut butter. Sad face.

********

They are always battling. Good versus bad, mischievous versus obliging. They never agree on anything. And, they both get me into trouble. 

*****

“You should help her.”

“Let her struggle. It’s funny.”

“She can’t get her paintbrush out of the pot. She needs your help.”

“You should finish painting her picture for her.”

“No! That would be mean.”

“But funny.”

“Still mean.”

“You should paint her — all over her shirt!”

“No! Miss Margey would be very angry. And she’d tell Mommy.”

“But it would be fun.”

“You should help her.”

I walked over and tried to help Ronda get her paint brush out of the paint jar.

“Get away!” she screeched at me. “Mine!”

“Alex, what’s going on?” asked Miss Margey, my nursery school teacher.

“I was helping Rhonda. Her brush is stuck.”

I pointed at the paint jar where Rhonda was still struggling.

“Mine!’ she screeched again.

Miss Margey looked from Rhonda to me.

“You weren’t trying to take her paints were you, Alexandra?”

“No! I was helping!’

“Okay, but you should go back to your own painting, and leave Rhonda alone.”

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

Silence.

*****

When I’m faced with a decision they speak up, loudly, always in opposition to each other. They never agree. It gets tiresome listening to them quarrel over every tiny decision in my life. What to eat, what to wear, what to watch. Everything! It's exhausting!  

*****

“Ohhhh! That’s cool. I really like it. It’s a hologram. Nice! You should take it.”

“But it’s not yours. It’s Harold’s. Don’t take it!”

“Doesn’t matter. Harold won’t notice it’s gone.”

“But it’s his, not yours.”

“But you don’t have one. You should have one. Look how shiny it is!”

I walked over to Harold’s desk, and picked up his new Pokémon card, and looked at it. They were right, I didn’t have this one. And I needed it for my collection. But that was stealing. Still, it was a nice card. And a rare one.

“Put it in your pocket. No one’s watching!”

I looked around. I didn’t see anyone looking my way. I started to move it towards my pocket.  

“What are you doing?

Harold. Uh-oh.

“Nothing. Just looking at your new Pokémon card. It’s a Lugia, right? Holograms are the best!”

Harold looked at me suspiciously. 

“Yah, so? What do you care?”

“I collect Pokémon cards.”

“Uh-huh. Were you going to steal mine?”

I tried to look shocked, and not guilty.

“No! I just wanted to look at it up close. I don’t have any holograms.”

“I do! Wanna see them?”

I ended up becoming Harold’s friend, and he gave me a number of his cards that were doubles, including the Lugia hologram, which I still have.

*****

Sometimes the worst of intentions turn out to be the best outcomes. But I never would have considered stealing if they hadn’t brought it up.

*****

“Who leaves a test answer sheet on the top of her desk, just waiting for students to look at it?”

“It was probably a mistake. She had to rush to the office, and probably didn’t realize.”

“You should look at it.”

“Noooooo! No! No! NO! That’s cheating. And you DO NOT cheat.”

“But isn’t calculus your hardest subject? A little bit of help could make all the difference.”

“No! You will not look at the test or the answer sheet. You’re better than that!”

“Look at all your friends taking pics of it. They are going to ace this test! And you’re going to suck it. You’ll probably fail.”

“You’re smart enough to pass this test on your own!”

“But the answer sheet would really help you.”

“No! You’re staying in your seat and not going anywhere near that desk—”

“She’s coming!” someone called.

Everyone rushed back to their desks.

“Okay, so where was I?”

Mrs. Williams handed out the test, and we got to work. I did notice her looking around for something, but she said nothing.

The next day she handed back the tests. I got a solid B+. Not my best, but still not bad for calculus. A bunch of the students around me were complainng, loudly.

Mrs. Williams stood at the front of the room, looking at the class.

“I see that a number of you are upset at your marks. I can understand that, considering the number of zeros I had to issue.” 

A hand shot up.  

“But I gave you the right answers! And I got a zero.”

Mrs. Williams shook her head.

“No, they’re not the right answers. And you didn’t show your work.”

“But it was a Scantron, and we only had to fill in the bubble for the correct answer. We don’t have to show our work”

A chorus of “yeahs” and “that’s rights” erupted.

“What I found,” said Mrs. Williams, “is that over half of you cheated. You took the answer sheet and copied the answers. Which happened to belong to another test that I was giving to another class. So, zeros for cheating, and a phone call home.”

Silence filled the room.

I’m so glad I didn’t give in, and silently thanked my angel.

*****

As I got older I asked other people if they had the same devil/angel, good/bad conversations in their heads. They said no. That worried me.

*****

I sat in my doctor’s office, in the chair that I usually occupied.

“So, is the medication helping?”

“No. I don’t believe that I need to be on antipsychotics. I’m not psychotic. I just have an over-active stream of consciousness. Because I have these conversations with … with myself, doesn’t make me psychotic.”  

“Many people who are psychotic don’t believe that they are psychotic,” said Dr. Henz. “That’s why we prescribe the antipsychotic drugs.”

“You should just get up and leave. This quack ain’t helping.”

“No, you should stay. He may be onto something. He could help you.”

“Duh! If he helps her, then he’ll try to shut us up, and then where will you be?”

“You need to hear him out. He’s not trying to hurt you.”

“No, he’s trying to silence US!”

I stayed for the rest of the session, but never went back again. I threw out the drugs, and determined to never tell another soul about my shoulder angel and shoulder devil.