Sometimes, we just don’t think things through and come to regret the results. Some mini-disasters would be so easily avoidable if we simply stopped for a moment, looked at what we were about to do, and asked, “Is this really a great idea? What’s the worst that could happen if I do this? What’s the best?”

Twelve-year-olds who are sure they’re about to turn twenty are particularly suspectible to this. I know I was at that age. At that age, we have an excuse: our brains simply haven’t finished forming despite all outward appearances to the contrary. After all, our bodies are soon reaching their fullest potential, and our learning curve has not been anywhere near as steep as it was when we were first wandering about the world. Surely the brains are done at that age. But they’re not, and this is especially true of the area of the brain that controls impulses. So we do things at that age without thinking about it because the portion of our brain that does that thinking isn’t fully developed yet.

This weekend at the lake with friends, L did something that could have foreseeably mini-disastrous (super-duper-mini-disastrous, micro-disastrous, even, but disaster was still the little nugget at the center of it all) consequences and resulted in the unintended destruction of someone else’s property.

The Girl, though, was calmly willing to go to the owner and discuss with him what happened. It helped that he was on his back porch and that she didn’t have to knock on the door. Still — a proud little moment for us.