Foot in the Door

As children, nearly every neighborhood kid played the timeless game of hide and seek outdoors in the great wide open. When I was a kid, we often played with no out of bound markers and the playing field stretched as far as you could get away. One sun shining day, the exhilarating fun turned frightful when two neighborhood children failed to return from the game. The curious children, who had explored their surroundings, found an old abandoned industrial freezer in the woods. It seemed to be the perfect place to hide until the freezer door latch fell into a locked position. It trapped both of them on the inside of the appliance. The neighborhood banded together and formed a search party. By the grace of God, the confined children were found alive on only panted breath.

I began to recite this cautionary tale to my children who had started to play hide and seek games of their own. My children are no different than most in thinking they know everything of this world with only a foot in the door. They interrupted my parental toned voice and jumped ahead of the story just to hear me shut up.

My oldest daughter took the lead. “Yeah, yeah we know not to do that, Dad. These stupid kids probably would have froze to death.”

“Froze to death?” I repeated. “It was summer time.”

“The freezer, Dad.” reminded my youngest daughter. “I agree with sissy. It must have been ice cold in there.”