The “Major” Mistake

Anyone who knows me knows that I am huge into criminal justice and being the Major of my Lewiston Regional Technical Program law class. Being the Major means I am the leader and top person in both classes. I am basically the assistant teacher. As this is a super honorable title that I cherish, but sometimes it comes with a lot of responsibility and pressure to do everything right.

I earned the position of being Major Miller by doing everything as well as I could and being the “example student”. Most of the time being the role model is super fun and I get a lot of joy teaching others what I know. Some of the times it is very difficult to be serious or not mess up when I get stressed out or confused. Many times I have messed up and thought that maybe I was not a good leader or that I could not be the best they could have. Even though moments like that they are such little mistakes it can get to you. But there have been some very funny moments where I thought this, but instead of letting it get to me, I just laughed it off to ease the pain and embarrassment.

Being the Major of my classes comes with different work for each class. The junior class I have to teach them drill, languages, laws, etc. They all look up to me and I think we all get along really well. They all ask me lots of questions and get very involved. I am super proud of this, but this makes it way more embarrassing when I mess up in front of them. For example, the worst and probably most embarrassing thing that has happened to me was when all eyes were on me. During the junior class one day, a group of freshman came in to see the class and how it worked. We talked about everything with them and that’s when it happened. My teacher Mr. Reece decided he wanted to show the freshman how handcuffing works. The junior cadets all start saying my name because they know that I am normally very good at it and can handcuff in about 0.1 seconds. Mr.Reece then grabs a pair of handcuffs and shows the freshman them. Mr. Reece then says “This is Major Deja Miller she is the world’s fastest handcuffer and she’s going to try it out and demonstrate on one of you.” So as normal, I walk up to the front super confident because I have never messed up before. Until now… This random kid steps up to be handcuffed and he was a lot shorter than me or anyone in my classes. I look down at the usually empowering silver handcuffs and anticipate to feel the clicks of the cuffs going around his wrist. I go to handcuff him and do everything the way it is normally done and as I go to handcuff him he moves and I drop the handcuffs straight to the ground and miss his hands completely. The once anticipated sounds of the linking handcuffs turned into a loud thud on the floor. The room goes silent. My teacher then decided to yell “DEJA BOOOOOO” and now my nickname is Deja Boo all thanks to him. I did do it a second time and got it just like normal. But as I sat down the other leaders were dying laugh at how he talked me up and I looked stupid in front of the class and they kept yelling the same thing he did. In that moment, I felt the hubris that was my life.

After a while of being crabby about what happened, I looked back at what happened and started laughing at the “DEJA BOOO” comment and how funny the whole thing was. Sometimes in life, we want to be perfect and I know that’s all I ever want to be. Embarrassing moments happen and I felt that laughing it off and seeing the comedy in what had happened to me helped make me feel better and helped the whole situation in general. I now know that when we handcuff someone in front of a group that I am going to death grip them so they do not move and so I do not look stupid like that again but. If I do ever mess up something as little as that I now know to take a breath and laugh. Life is too short to let something so small bother me.