I have been told that it is wrong to eavesdrop. It is, for all but those who travel by public transport. When ten people share a seat originally meant for two you get to overhear conversations whether you want to or not. Sometimes it’s hilarious, sometimes it’s boring. Sometimes it makes you think.
A little girl was sitting on her mothers lap (not for anything else but the abovementioned shortage of space) and telling her all that had happened in school that day. The account was very detailed, rather engrossing and had not a chance in the world of being true.
Her mother listened to her for sometime and then asked her to shut up and stop lying. The poor child insisted (wide eyed, her two silly looking pigtails flapping vigorously) that all of it had really happened; she had seen it with her own eyes. She got a tight slap for her pains and a warning that if she lied again shed be locked up in a room with the light switched off. With a faint feeling of distaste I turned away.
This child’s mother felt that she had nipped a very bad habit in the bud. For you see it is wrong to make up stories in your head and pass them of as the truth. So she had punished her for it and called her a liar….
She had nipped something in the bud all right only it wasn’t what she thought it was. Nowadays the more intellectual people say that the world shouldn’t be viewed in black or white, allowances should be made for areas of grey. Black and white, I feel, is good enough provided you know one from the other