Once there was a young boy named Sammy. His father had been on quite a few business trips recently, and was working long hours even when he was in town. As a result, Sammy had not seen much of him for the last several months, and neither had Sammy’s mother.
Now you might think that the point of this story is to get you all to feel sorry for Sammy, but I am afraid that will have to wait for another time. His father was simply doing what all dads have to sometimes do, and it really was true that after the first of the year, his schedule was going to get back to normal.
And it was a good thing, too, because Sammy was rapidly becoming a real stinkard. His mother was in the same boat he was in, but instead of feeling mindful of her, and helping her out, Sammy took every opportunity to make her days much more miserable than they had to be. He didn’t come when he was called, he wouldn’t make his bed unless he was told three times, and he liked to complain about the food at dinner.
One evening when he and his mother were sitting alone at dinner (dad was going to be home in a couple of hours), his mother asked him about his behavior. Instead of popping off, like he usually did, he decided it was time to try to make her feel sorry for him. After all, even though he was being a pill to her, he must be the real victim. At least, that is how he felt. And so he told his mother that he missed his dad, and that he couldn’t be held responsible for anything so long as dad was gone and his “tank was low.” He had heard that last expression in a sermon at church, and it had seemed at the time a very useful expression, and so he had remembered it.
But his mother was a wise woman, and knew what was going on. “I know, Sammy. I know how much you miss your dad—playing catch on Saturdays, watching a movie together, helping you with your homework, the seventeen spankings you would have gotten over this last week . . .”
Sammy sat bolt upright. “Spankings?” he said, and he was humiliated by the quaver in his voice.
“Well, of course,” she said. “You told me your tank was low.”
“Is that what that means?” Sammy asked, resolving to pay closer attention to the rest of the sermons.
“That’s not all it means,” she said. “Of course not. But that is part of what it means.”