COMPUNCTIOUS

February 11, 2010

Compunctious
\kem-‘penk-shes\ adj 1: arising from remorse or regret 2: feeling remorse or regret*

Sally was not one of those people who was mean-spirited. She often characterized herself as being a giving and altruistic person; constantly making sure others were comfortable or helped instead of herself. Sally loved serving the community and usually could be found raking leaves in a nearby park on a Saturday afternoon or dishing up hot soup to homeless men and women in the soup kitchen a couple of blocks from her house. She had a steady boyfriend – Mike – and they were inseparable, until one evening when Sally was on her way home from work.
As Sally drove down her street she passed Mike’s apartment and was about to pull into his driveway as she noticed a car that belonged to their mutual coworker, Mary. Sally could not understand why Mary was in her neighborhood so late when she had been off that day and when she lived twenty minutes away. Deep down in her heart, Sally knew what had happened (or what was happening rather) and decided instead of engaging in an awkward confrontation tonight, she would go home, get some sleep and come up with a plan to ruin Mike’s life forever. (Oh, and Mary’s too).
The next day at work, Sally put her best face on and marched into work wearing a huge smile. It was not until a few hours later when Mary and Mike arrived, that Sally could not fake her happiness anymore. She locked herself into the employee’s bathroom and cried for an hour.
After her mini-breakdown, Sally ran into Alex, her coworker in the office. She suddenly realized to herself, what better way to ruin Mary and Mike’s reputation than gossip? She rushed up to Alex and mentioned she had something juicy to tell her. Alex raised her eyebrow (obviously interested) and the two of them returned to the employee bathroom to chat.
A couple of hours later, Mike came up to Sally. Sally immediately tried to grasp Mike’s hand and pretend like she had never seen Mary’s car in his driveway. Mike quickly dropped his hand and glared at her. Sally feigned surprise (really well) and was flabbergasted by his outburst. Mike ultimately accused her of spreading vicious lies about him and Mary and how she should have kept her big mouth shut. Mike stalked off after his tirade and left Sally standing behind the check-in counter dazed and confused.
Days later, instead of feeling happy that she had successfully carried out her plan, Sally felt compunctious and decided she should try to remedy the situation. She walked over to Mike’s apartment and after several sharp raps on the door, Mike was standing in front of her and before she was able to stop herself, she admitted the whole thing was intended to hurt him and Mary because she herself had been hurt by their actions. Mike listened genuinely and also apologized for verbally berating Sally the previous day. They shook hands and returned to their lives, never to see or speak to each other again.

*letter “e” is upside down creating sound of “uh”