Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Easter Near Miss

We had a near disaster on Easter afternoon. The kids were rollerblading under strict orders not to skate anywhere near the grill where we were roasting our Easter chicken. After the bird was roasted and eaten, my son went back outside. Perhaps it was the effect of all the candy, but he disregarded the no-skating-near-the-grill injunction and ended up slamming into it. Providentially, the top was still on and he knocked the grill away from himself so no hot coals fell on him. Still, he got screeched at and his rollerblades were confiscated until further notice.

He ran into his room, there to bewail his sins and his cruel fate. After about fifteen minutes, he came out, grabbed his nerf baseball bat and began hitting himself on the head with it.

"You don't have to do that, you know," I said to him. "When you make a mistake the best thing is to learn from it and move on."

"No," he said. "I'd rather hit myself over the head, then forget all about it."

Which is the whole problem, isn't it? We'd all rather endure a little short term punishment than experience true repentance. . .

3 comments:

Princess of Everything (and then some) said...

*blinks* eeerrrrrmmmmmm......that sounds like something that we as humans do all of the time.

Unknown said...

Yes, this very day, in fact.

Anonymous said...

ouch!