Dunk the Kitty in the River?

From the trash can of Tarma Shena

When I was a kid my Mother used to tell us a story about a common, rural, farm woman who sends her idiot son to the Baker in the village to pick up a piece of cake.

He dutifully walks to the village Baker and gets the cake, putting it in his pocket he walks back home. By the time he gets home it is nothing but a ruined lump of frosting and pocket lint.

She is pretty angry and tells him what he should have done is put the piece of cake under his hat where it was safe and walk carefully home. I don’t know what kind of hats they wore that you could do that but whatever, at least it wouldn’t be jammed in his pocket.

So the next week she sends him to the Dairy down the road for a pound of better and her son puts it under his hat for the walk back home. Of course it’s a warm day and his head is warm. There is a fair amount of heat under that hat and the butter all melts into his hair and down the back of his neck into his shirt. I’m not sure that would have been so good for the cake either but what do I know, there isn’t enough room under my cowboy hat for cake or butter.

When he gets home his Mother is furious and she yells at him about how much money that butter cost and the cake too. At some point you’d think she might reconsider sending him to town at all. Doesn’t he have an older sister, or maybe the family dog, who could go to town and pick up supplies.

But no, she tells him that what he should have done is wrap the butter in damp leaves and dip it in the stream occasionally on his way home to keep it cool.

Now I’m sure most of you can see where this is going and I remember listening to this story as a kid and “My Mother” always telling it about the idiot son and how he couldn’t take simple directions. But I think some of the responsibility needs to be spread around here because you would think that at some point this woman would realize that maybe she should handle things a little differently going forward.

Like maybe handing out instructions for the item he is actually going to pick up TODAY instead of waiting for him to get it wrong and then getting all mad and THEN giving him the instructions after the fact. Or maybe she should have made a list of all the things they needed and they could go to town together at the end of the week.

But no, there is no common sense on this farm and we are stuck in a rut of rinse and repeat no matter how poorly it works out. She sends him to the farm down the road who’s barn cat recently had kittens so he can bring one back for their farm.

Yup, he wraps it in damp leaves and regularly dunks it in the stream on his way home to keep it cool. The poor thing is wet, bedraggled and half drown by the time he gets it home. But it doesn’t stop there.. They keep doing it, round and round and round.

You should have put the kitty on a string… … … etc. etc.

I told you this story to make a point about social media and the reason we DO NOT provide training advice unless you pay for our platform.

I am going to temporarily ignore the entitled mentality that has cropped up wherein if your expertise is intellectual it must be handed out for free.

But really it is because there are too many people out there that cannot take the time to read and apply common sense before they go dunking their poor kitty in the river and when you add in all the comments from people who swear by storing butter under their hat you can see why it is not an environment conducive to learning.