1. Giving little to charity. For what that box set of Tegan and Sara vinyl cost me, I could have purchased 12 bed nets to protect children from malaria in Africa. Worldwide, a child dies from malaria every minute.

2. Not answering the phone most of the time when my friend calls. We used to hang out together all the time, but now we live in different states. It’s always good to talk with him, but I always have something going on, and like a lot of people, with texting and e-mail I’ve grown to dislike phone calls in general. When I see that it’s him calling, I often don’t pick up. He keeps calling.

3. Killing a mother duck on I-494. I came around a turn at 60 MPH, and I hardly had a moment to recognize that there was a duck in front of me before there was a sickening crunch. Feathers flew everywhere, and when I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw several confused ducklings waddling into the breakdown lane. There was nothing I could have safely done to prevent the accident, but still, I’ve found that people have to look away from me for a few seconds after I tell this story.

4. Not breaking up with my first girlfriend. I met Tiffany when I was back in Minnesota for the summer. She was an aspiring filmmaker, and she hated her name. We dated for a couple of months, but I thought it was best that the relationship end—it would just be too hard to keep it going on a long-distance basis. I didn’t break up with her, though: never having dated anyone previously, I wasn’t brave enough to say the words. She drove me to the airport, and I got on the plane and flew away. We haven’t spoken to each other since, but I still have the birthday card she gave to me that summer. She signed it with her first and last names, and I asked why. “Because,” she replied, “someday you might not remember who I was.”

5. Not helping my parents clear the snow from their house. They live in St. Paul. I live in Minneapolis. They have a lot of sidewalk. Not once this winter, or last, or the one before that, have I offered to go over and help them shovel. They hire a neighbor boy to do it, but he’s not very reliable.

6. Giving my sister only a $20 Caribou gift card for her birthday this year. She turned 30. I really should have stepped it up for that.

7. Not being nice to my brother when he was little. My brother Joe is nine years younger than me. I don’t remember being mean to him when he was young, but I sure don’t remember going out of my way to spend much time with him either. I disapproved of his decadent six-year-old lifestyle, just lying there on the couch, eating pizza rolls and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles while I was up in my room, working hard at cataloging my mix tapes and writing expanded rules for space combat board games. I should have been nicer to him, and taken him to play mini-golf or something. I’ll bet that would have made him really happy.

8. Talking about people behind their backs. Sometimes you have to get something off your chest—but most times it’s probably best in the long run to just keep your mouth shut.

9. Not playing Just Dance with the daughter of the family I stayed with in Austin for SXSW. I stayed with friends of my aunt’s, who generously put me up in their house. Their daughter asked me multiple times if I would play Just Dance with her on the family Wii, but I was always busy posting my reports or getting ready to go downtown again. Could I have found ten minutes to play Just Dance with her? Yes, and I should have.

10. Leaving my out-of-town friends to stay by themselves at my parents’ house while I went to stay with my ex-girlfriend. My ex (not Tiffany, a more recent girlfriend) and I were dating at the time, and two friends—women I’d met at grad school—had driven across the country to visit me. I’d just found a Minneapolis apartment to move into, but hadn’t moved yet; I was still with my parents in St. Paul, and my friends stayed with me there.

My friends and I went out on the town with my then-girlfriend, and my girlfriend and I got rip-roaring drunk on our drinks—and on the drinks my friends intentionally failed to consume, because they were having less and less fun with the two of us as the evening wore on.

My friends and I parted ways with my girlfriend in Minneapolis, and as one of my friends drove us back to St. Paul, my girlfriend texted me saying that she’d like it if I came over. I decided that I’d like that too, and when we arrived back in St. Paul, I told my friends that I was headed back to Minneapolis for the night—but I’d return to St. Paul bright and early to see them off on their return road trip.

“Really, Jay?” one of my friends asked. “Really?” Yes, really. “Well,” she said, after a long pause, “okay, then.”

I walked out the front door of my parents’ house, intending to call a cab since I knew I was in no shape to drive. My dad was sitting on the front porch, having a smoke. I told him of my plan, and he said he’d drive me. He didn’t ask any questions, he just drove me over to my girlfriend’s Uptown apartment. I walked up the stairs, and she answered the door with a look of disbelief that I’d actually come.

It was a hot summer night, and we sat on her couch in front of the window fan. She started to smoke, and I started to cry. By the time she finished her cigarette, five more children, somewhere, had died of malaria.

– Jay Gabler

Photo by M.V. Jantzen (Creative Commons)