Have you ever regretted a really bad decision? Have you ever done something dumb and thought, “Man I shouldn’t have done that.”? Sometimes people are selfish and do as they please, but it ends up with a bad outcome. I believe that doing what you want does not always have the best possible outcome.

Ahhhhhh, Shrimp Fest. It was a Saturday night, November 3rd, and I was watching some college football. Up pops a Red Lobster commercial advertising all-you-can-eat shrimp. Since my birthday was on the 5th, I got to choose where we ate on Sunday. You guessed it, Red Lobster. As we were sitting down to eat, I was eager to order. For the next 30 minutes I was face down to the table stuffing shrimp after shrimp in my mouth. I ate probably 60-70 pieces of shrimp that day. Later, my stomach felt like it was on a roller coaster. I was sick for two days. My eyes were bigger than my stomach and I paid for it.

Bad decisions didn’t stop there. Every spring break, the WJHS baseball team goes to Cocoa Beach, Florida for “spring training.” At the baseball complex, there is an outdoor basketball court. I had seen it for three years but never had any use of it. Me and some friends decided we wanted a little break from baseball, so we went to shoot some hoops. About 30 minutes in, a coach from another team drives by and says, “If I was your coach I’d slash that ball.” After about 15 more minutes, we headed back to the dorms. That night, coach told me and the “basketball stars” to stay after practice. Oh no. I guess that coach had told our coach. To pay for our mistakes, we had to run 10 poles each. We found out the hard way that coach wasn’t a basketball fan, all because I wanted to shoot some hoops.

I’m still not looking for good outcomes. It was the week before school started, and I was on my way home from a party. To break the silence, my mom told me I had to go spend two days with my grandma. Grandma’s? Nobody wants to go to their grandma’s. I wanted to spend the week with my friends. I had been busy all summer and my only free week I had to spend with my grandma. I tried arguing with my mom but she didn’t buy it. After all the bickering back and forth, of course, mom always wins. She made me go. As usual, the ride up there was torture. All she grandma talked about was gas prices, gas mileage, and reckless drivers. My ears were about to fall off. I got there at 9 pm and wanted to go to bed. Instead I went and watched TV. She only has 5 channels and only 3 of them work. The next day, she fixed me the best breakfast I had had all summer. After that we played about 10 games of pool. She is good, she beat me 6 times. After lunch, I swam for at least 2 hours. We went out to eat that night, and the next day we did the same thing. It was fun.

From my experiences, I think about outcomes rather than fun. The trip with my grandma proved that I’m not always right. I believe you should think before you act.