Confession: Not Every Idea Was Mine
I have been meaning to write this, but I conveniently put it off. I had to get to it at some point.
Just before the end of 5th grade, my teacher, Mr. Dildine, set up what should have been an easy and fun contest to celebrate the end of another year and our promotion to middle school. We had to design a new candy bar. With a poster board, we were asked to draw the candy and give it a name, slogan and description. The prize of a King Size Hershey’s Bar would go to the best poster in his opinion. That was it.
I drew a picture of chocolate wafers and called them “Choco Sticks.” The slogan was “Choco sticks are fun to lick.” On the last day of school, Mr. Dildine taped my poster to the whiteboard, explained my work to the class and announced that I was the winner. I claimed my Hershey’s Bar and ate it all that day.
“Choco Sticks” sounds like an award-worthy idea. But it was not mine. As pathetic as this sounds, I blatantly stole the idea from the television show Arthur.
There was an episode I knew in which the title character participated on a game show. He did not win but received a conciliatory gift of candy called “Choco-Sticks.” Its motto was “The chocolate stick that’s fun to lick.” The few contrasts between the show’s creation and what I presented included the hyphen in the name and the wording of the slogan. I remember my artwork appearing slightly different from the way the candy appeared on the show, but I cannot be positive. If I am right, the description was the only part that I made up on my own, but it did not matter at that point. I copied another idea and said it was mine. I did not deserve the candy bar. I deserved to be called out before the whole class.
I am still surprised none of my peers pointed out that I had cheated. Maybe they were not sure if this was indeed another person’s idea. Maybe they did know but kept it to themselves for some reason. Maybe no one had seen that episode of Arthur. It is irrelevant, though. I should not have gotten away with it.
Ironically, there is another episode of the show I am sure I had seen at that point in which the character Francine plagiarizes a paper before realizing the harm in it. I obviously did not think about that before committing an act of plagiarism.
I have thought about why I would have done this. I was not under pressure. How could I have been with such a simple assignment? I must have been lazy. I did not want to be original. What is especially sad about this is that I had already developed a passion for film. I had come up with movie posters and plots before. But I wasted one of the earliest opportunities I had to show off a creative side because I thought I could take an easy way out if I felt like it. For that, I feel ashamed. I have felt bad about this for years and I should continue to feel embarrassed for years to come. It is a fair punishment.
I am sorry to Mr. Dildine, to whom I directly apologized by email back in 2017 but who did not understand the extent of my transgression. He only thought I had help from a parent. That is because I was not as transparent as I could and should have been. I apologize to my classmates, who unfairly lost that contest. I am sorry to the team behind Arthur and specifically the writer of the episode from which I stole, Peter K. Hirsch. I would never do it again.
I like to write. I like to be creative. I will never again show so much disrespect for the form as to take credit for another person’s work.
I want to share a new idea for a candy. If it resembles an actual treat, it is entirely unintentional.
Name: Spill-Outs
Slogan: Let it flow.
Description: You have a tall, thin milk chocolate bar. The top is a hollow segment easy to pick off. Below that, you will not find caramel or nougat packed inside but thick chocolate syrup. The syrup flows through a small crevice on the roof of the bar from where you bite the top off. And it lands right in your mouth.
You may find this idea silly or boring. But, similar to what Francine thought after she re-wrote her paper and received an appropriate grade for it in the aforementioned episode of Arthur, I still think this is better than what I contributed previously. And I would rather be bad at what I do than be dishonest.
Last Updated: 11/10/2022
