Monday, September 28, 2009

Bethany's bathtub

Bethany was laying down in the tub. She watched as she raised her foot (which was starting to turn into a giant raisin) out of the water and plopped it back in, making the bubbles in her water make little popping noises. Then came the bad news, the doorknob clicked as it opened. And in it came. It was furry, it was huge, it was pink with Hawaiian flowers! Bethany closed her eyes tightly. The thing spoke.

"Bethany, it's time to get out of the tub."

Bethany stood up, reaching for the towel. "Ok, Mom. You can unplug the bathtub, and I'll get dried off."


Mom snatched the towel away, cruelly. "Bethany, be a big girl and unplug it yourself. I've done it for five years, it's your turn now."

"I think I want to stay in the tub a little longer."

Mom gave Bethany the evil 'someday-when-you-have-kids-and-they-give-you-a -had-time-I-will-laugh-in-your-face' look. She stuck a finger in the tub. "Bethany, you've been in here for almost an hour. The water's freezing. Come on, get out."

"No!" Bethany was ready to cry. She was too scared to unplug the tub. When you unplug the tub, you go down, down, down the drain with the rest of the water. Bethany had never witnessed this happen before, but she'd heard about it from her older brother.


Mom gave Bethany another look. But this time it was the deadly 'If-you-don't-start-cooperating-right now...' look. Mom never finished that phrase. She didn't have to, Bethany knew what she meant.

Mom started tapping her foot.

Bethany squeezed her eyes shut. A few tears slid down her cheek as she slipped her hand into the water. She yanked it back out. "I can' do it!"

Mom wasn't being merciful today. Her foot continued to tap, and the deadly look was still on her face.

Bethany started screaming and crying. Mom didn't even move-except for her eyebrow. She was doing the eyebrow-cock.

Finally, Bethany reached her hand down to the plug and was promptly sucked sown the drain without another trace.

"Bethany, stop crying. Just do it." Mom reached over and grabbed Bethany's hand, guiding it toward the drain.

Without any other choice, Bethany unplugged the drain all by herself and was promptly not sucked down the drain!
From then on, Bethany was never afraid of unplugging anything. She always remembered how brave she had been that day and it helped her never to be scared!
Until the day she had to take her first shower...but that's another story.

There is an analogy in that story so whoever can guess the correct one gets a post written for them. My next post will explain the analogy if no one can get it.
Jocelberry

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

In my best Mr. Rogers voice: "You can never go down, can never go down, can never go down the drain....."
Hmmm....analogy....trust your mom, she would never make you do something that wasn't for your own good!

Shirin said...

I don't know. But I am having flashbacks about sparks from the socket flying out and burning me and my house to ashes when I UNPLUG! I never liked unplugging...anything! Including the drain. I also had this thing about monsters under my bed, but someone already wrote that book.

Jocelberry said...

Goodness gracious, are you serious?

Lee said...

never be afraid God is with you he puts us through hards times when we never think we can do something only to show us that He is in control and that He will give us strength to face the toughest things including bath tub plugs! You know Joss I'm not afraid of plugs just spiders, cars, clowns, and revolving doors

Echoes in Ink said...

Great analogy!

I think that the meaning is that God gives you what he knows you're ready for - and that even if it's hard to be brave, God's with you and you should obey him, because - after all - he gave you what he knew you were ready for and he is ALWAYS right!

(By the way, that was a hugely run-on sentence)

Love ya,
Susy