Many of the great world religions teach that we are each put on this earth to learn an important lesson. For young Amon “Chance” Carter IV, that lesson appears to be – if someone puts a hot iron to your ass, it’s going to leave a messy, painful scar. (This is not a Zen koan or a Christian parable. It’s what happened to Carter).
Local media outlets are reporting the outrage that the Carter family feels because Chance got the Stockyards treatment while on vacation in Colorado with his TCU frat buddies. The college sophomore admits he allowed himself to be branded, but, well, he didn’t know that such a big, ugly, painful scar would appear on his keister. His father, Amon Carter III, has retained a lawyer to hold someone in the fraternity responsible – someone besides his son, a legal adult who volunteered to bend over in a booze haze and have a friend press a molten piece of iron against his gluteus maximus.
Chance looks like a nice kid. And we’ve all done stupid things in our young adult years. Personally, I knew by the age of, say, 12 that having my butt branded with a scorching insignia would be a bad thing, but no judgments here, people. My life’s lesson apparently involves something other than hot metal plus ass flesh equals horrible scar. By the way Chance’s family is reacting, though, it looks like learning about accountability is a ways off for him.
