fool me once

Recent events in a local adult organization and a high school group share the pattern of expecting those bodies to be other than what they are.

In the case of the teens, it is a valuable lesson they need to learn if they have not yet. The adults, on the other hand, should have learned this one LONG AGO.

The fables and sayings share this lesson across cultures and time. All of us live in a space we share with scorpions and frogs, old women and snakes.

Get used to it.

The Scorpion and the Frog

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the
scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The
frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion
says, “Because if I do, I will die too.”

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream,
the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of
paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown,
but has just enough time to gasp “Why?”

Replies the scorpion: “Its my nature…”

—-

An old woman was walking down the road whan she saw a gang of thugs beating a poisonous snake. She rescued the snake and carried it back to her home, where she nursed it back to health.

They became friends and lived together for many months. One day they were going into town and the old woman picked him up and the snake bit her. Repeatedly. “O God,” she screamed, “I am dying! Why? I was your friend. I saved your life! I trusted you! Why did you bite me?”

The snake looked up at her and said, “You knew I was a snake when you first picked me up.”

—–

Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, shame on me