Gate

A gentle word opens an iron gate.

~ Bulgarian Proverb

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When I was a kid my parents had to use wire and stuff to chain up a gate on our backyard so that I wouldn't escape. One day, my mom was at the door when the garbage man came to get our garbage can from the back yard (apparently they used to do that). Before she could come outside, I had untangled the wire and let him in.

After that, I think they put a chain and a padlock on the gate. We didn't use the gate for years after that.

Then one day my brother Erik was playing by that gate and rattled it around. A swarm of wasps came out and stung him all over his face.

I have no idea what the moral of that story is. Here are a few possibilities:

* Trap the child and it will come back to punish another child.

* Locked gates and wasps' nests are the scourge of the future.

* What protects one day will cause downfall.

* If you're going to try and lock your kids up, do it inside so that they don't get a face full of wasp stings.