Quotation Contest Entry 4/2026

Short story based on "Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes." by Oscar Wilde

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes." — Oscar Wilde

Once there was a village of small people living in the forest. They were friendly and very ingenious. They could create so many things, especially things that were important to them, such as housing, transportation and even food. The were very smart (some not so smart and not the brightest light bulb) but never were the types to flaunt their smartness. They had what appeared to be, a leader. Her name was Charm. How did she get that name; she charmed folks with her loving, care and hard to believe personality. However, Charm was very important to her village, as she could keep her people in line and they respected her.

Charm found out that if she could convince her people that they were all smart, never made any mistakes and had tremendous value, they would always respect her and keep her as their leader. Charm would have meetings and invite several of the not so smart members to help with the meetings. She made them feel special and very important to the meeting. She would give them little jobs like passing out minutes from the last meeting and show members to their seating; jobs like that. No job was too small for Charm to make it important to her tribe. Once she created a very desirable job by telling the members that who ever carried out this job would certainly have an extended life. Well, she had everyone asking for the job. What was the job you ask? Why, cleaning the latrines, of course. Someone had to do it and it sure was not going to be Charm.

To further entice the members to volunteer for the most important job, latrine cleaner, she offer up a special meeting for all interested parties. She explain the job, what she expected to see as results, and what rewards they would receive for a well job done. She even passed out job descriptions. She did this knowing that she just might recruit some not so smart participants of her tribe and they would need some help in carrying out the job. She explained that because of the importance of the latrine job, that they would be monitored closely for the first month to be sure things went as planned. Charm would also appoint one of her top helpers to oversee the job so that the new person would be successful. She assigned Sniff to be the helper and oversee the actions of her new latrine cleaner. However, she didn't explain how this job would extend a person's life. Several folks attended and the meeting was a success. Charm picked Miss Fragrance for the job.

Miss Fragrances had excellent credentials as she had assisted prior in other cleanup jobs in the forest and Charm was sure so could do the job. Also, she trusted Stiff to oversee all aspects of the job. He was certainly anatomically structured since he had an award winning schnozzle nose. He knows clean and will be able to tell if Miss Fragrance is slipping up. With a job like latrine cleaner, we don't want any mistakes.

Well, Monday came and it was time for Miss Fragrances to start her new job. She reported to Sniff who helped her gather her supplies and off they went. Now, in the forest, the small people built a very long building which contained 20 beautiful latrines. Now most of us would consider this an average, mundane job. But for Stiff, who wanted to reassure his worth to Charm, he figured he would make sure Miss Fragrance didn't do a good job. He was going to set her up for failure. He decided that instead of cleaning each latrine individually that the job would go faster if they just hosed the whole place down. I did mention that not all the members of the forest were the brightest light bulbs in the lamp, right? Well, Sniff got Miss Fragrance to hose the joint down. Poop was floating everywhere. Sniff, while enjoying what was going to happen to Miss Fragrance, had to stuff cotton up his snoot so as to continue the calamitous situation. Oh, I bet I forgot to tell you that it was also a very hot day in August in the forest so the odor was traveling fast.

"What on earth is that smell," asked Charm? By now, several of the members of the forest were leaving the area for fresher surroundings. Charm tracked down the situation with her overly blessed sense of smell and could not believe her eyes. This was the worst catastrophe she had seen in ages. How could it happen. She located both Miss Fragrance and Sniff for questioning. Miss Fragrance stated she was doing what she was told. Sniff replied that she lied and that his instructions were to clean each latrine individually. Obviously a mistake had been made here. And Charm figured that since Sniff was in charge, he would help in the cleanup! Charm started to laugh. She had remembered reading about a quote by a famous author, Oscar Wilde. "Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes." Charm laughed and laughed because she thought Sniff was so experienced that a mistake like this should not happen. It looks like Mr. Wilde was right.

After great consideration, Charm fired Sniff and put Miss Fragrance in charge of appointing a new latrine cleaner. Well, since Sniff had somewhat of seniority in the tribe, Charm felt sorry for him. She spoke with Miss Fragrance and asked her to appoint Sniff to latrine cleaner. At least he would retain his status and not have to leave the tribe if he agreed to the appointment. Reluctantly, Stiff agreed. All is well in the forest again.

Words: 961