Original post: http://www.penana.com/story/9003/we-all-have-our-moments/issue/6
A beautiful blue and gold camping tent. A five-year-old master of knots. A mischievous 15-year-old friend. No parents. Nothing could go wrong, right?
It started simple enough. Hide-and-seek always became a little rowdier and locking doors wasn't a problem when they all had the same locks and everyone had a key. We'll get back to the marvelous tent in a moment.
It was the five-year-old's turn to hide. As the master of knots that he knew he was, the little boy climbed into the tent, zipped up the door, pulled in the zippers, and knotted the cloth handles together once. No problem. His older friend found him in half a minute and untied the little boy.
A few more rounds of normal hide-and-seek and the five-year-old was getting bored. He'd played that game too many times. Knowing that his parents would be getting home soon, he wanted to try one last trick. And of course, it inevitably involves that marvelous blue tent.
Climbing in, the little boy closed the tent door just like before. Closing the flap that covered the mesh window, he made sure there was no way for his friend to look in. Then came the stupidity.
The self-proclaimed knot master knotted the cloth zipper handles together. And then he knotted them again. And again. The five-year-old knotted the entire length of the zipper handles together until they couldn't physically be knotted anymore. Then he waited.
It was a shame the parents came home. It was a shame the knot-master made no sound. The older friend couldn't find the little boy, and people started to panic.
Some smart person, probably one of the parents, decided to check the hulking tent in the middle of the family room. That smart person found the little boy trapped inside the tent with the zipper handles tied all the way.
If there had been a fire, the boy would have died, trapped inside the tent. If there were an earthquake, a hurricane, a tornado, the boy would have died a horrible death inside the blue and gold tent. Luckily, there wasn't a natural disaster right at that moment. Otherwise, you'd have seen this story in the news instead of as one of the stupidest things people do.
The first thing they told the boy to do was untie himself from his potential grave. Though this boy was a master of knots, he'd been too good. Two or three of the knots on top were easily unraveled, but there were ten, perhaps twelve knots all in succession. The next knot was exponentially harder than the last, and panic was starting to rise in all that were involved, especially the boy trapped inside, desperately pulling at the cloth handles with his stubby, bitten fingernails.
As I said earlier, the little boy didn't die a painful death inside the tent. So how'd he get out? The answer was as stupid as the problem. Scissors.
Yes, the parents cut the zipper handles clean off and rescued the boy. And to ensure this never happened again, they threw away the entire blue and gold tent. Problem solved. Right? No.
I could tell you story after story about how the young knot master tied himself into more and more trouble, but this is the end of this story. Maybe I'll add some more of my rope adventures at some point, but this is it, for now.
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