Most of us, I am sure, can remember singing OH BE CAREFUL LITTLE ONES WHAT YOU DO as a child. Perhaps it was Sunday school or maybe Kindergarten that it was introduced to you, and if you are like me, you can still do most of the actions. I didn’t know it then, but this song would affect me profoundly when temptations presented themselves later in life. I didn’t always make the right choices and had to learn the hard way that carelessness had consequences.

My introduction to society was marred from the very first day of school. It rained during the night, and mud puddles stretched across the entire road. A miscalculated jump splashed water up my crotch, and because of the time, my older sister refused my tearful request to take me back home so that I could change my pants. The children on the playground noticed immediately, and I was teased, nearly every day from then on, about peeing my pants.

I was usually on the receiving end of the bullying, but by the 7th grade, I had made some friends and had learned to live with it. The fact that there were new kids to tease in the junior high school also took some pressure off me. One of them was Davy. He was a bit overweight, most likely because he was from a broken home and ate a lot of junk food instead of healthy meals like the rest of us. We were not good friends, but we did get along with each other, because of our status, and he, like me, had learned to live with the teasing.

I still remember the day when some of the boys were making fun of Davy during the morning recess. I joined in with what I thought was an original chant to impress the group.” Fatty, fatty two by four, can’t get through the bathroom door,” I shouted, jokingly, to the amusement of everyone. Davy laughed along with the others as the bell rang and we all returned to the classroom.

No one had noticed that Davy had not come back into the room with us after recess… until we heard the sound of sirens in the neighborhood and the cries of his grieving mother.

“Oh, be careful little tongue what you say…”

Lesson in Life 1: WORDS HAVE CONSEQUENCES