I came home from camping, and my wife asked if my face was red from too much sun. No. I led a nature hike of sorts in the woods, but we had the shade of poplar trees. I didn’t sit in the sun much. I sat in the shade, wrapped in flannel and fell asleep in my father’s chain from the relaxing wind and allergy pills.
I had a burned face from a very hot and pretty immense fire that some teenagers we were leading built.
They put extra stumps in the center of it to make it burn longer, because one of them didn’t lift a finger to help and was assigned to put it out. They were getting revenge on him for his always-lazy-ness. He did wind up proving them right when he threw a hissy fit and kicked something when he had to put the fire out after he tried very hard to get out of it. I mean, it’s easier than finding, cutting and stacking wood.
On one hand, I was proud that they stuck together and glad that the person who always manipulates the rest of them and gets out of doing anything he doesn’t want to do got a small portion of what was coming to him. The whole thing smelled of justice. But on the other hand, I was disappointed at their revenge impulse. There were other ways to get him to work, though I can’t think of them.
Mostly, though, I’m afraid I might have instilled this revenge instinct in these youngins. I hope not. They are some nice people.
>relaxing wind and allergy pills.
you take wind pills?
i wouldn’t worry about “encouraging revenge” — it wasn’t you, it’s a natural human reaction- to punish deviators from the social norms. and merely enforcing duty is not revenge, so much as an underlining of the duty/shared-responsibility
Sal!
My wind pills are a very lucky prescription:)
I think you might be right about revenge vs. enforcing duty, my friend. I think the pleasure they took threw me a little:)