There are many lessons you learn
during even a moderately full life.
Some of great value, others trifles,
but each unique in some way, hence
it being a lesson at all and not
an echo of what you already knew.
One lesson I clearly recall is that you
never, after eating a meal of Japanese food
with far too much sake, tell the driver
of the taxi that you will give him
an absolutely obscenely large tip if he can
get you from the Waikiki Beach Hyatt
to the Honolulu airport in less than
20 minutes, knowing your plane
leaves in 40 minutes, the last
flight out that day, for you will spend
the all too brief trip clutching
the door handle while struggling
mightily to keep dinner within you.