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| I chose to write about a proverb not on the list: A stitch in time saves nine. This was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the prompt and I was disappointed that it wasn’t a choice on the list. But it did say we could go to another list and also choose from there. I chose A stitch in time… because I really understand where it is coming from. I understand what it means literally and figuratively. Literally, if you sew up a tear when it is small you can prevent it from getting bigger and needing more stitches to close it or having to replace an item. This has been especially pertinent in my life as I have always had at least one dog. Dogs love plush squeaky toys! It is an undeniable fact. They love to squeak them until they stop squeaking and they love to chew them up and tear them apart. But they also love to cuddle them and baby them. They can become very upset if their toy becomes so badly damaged that it has to go to “heaven”. So upset that you can spend an entire day hunting every pet story in the city looking for the same toy to magically make it better. A way to lengthen the life of your average squeaky is to sew the rips as soon as you see them. This is definitely a case of a stitch in time saving nine. One way or another you must keep that toy as whole as you can and it is easier when the rips are small. Why should I care about dog toys? Well, dogs are thinking feeling beings that fall in love and form emotional attachments even to inanimate objects. Loosing these objects can actually cause depression. The way they cry and mope around the house when a toy goes to “heaven” is really disturbing if you have any empathy whatsoever. Now figuratively, it doesn’t have to be something sewn or repaired. It refers to making sure to take actions to prevent larger problems. To intervene in circumstances before they become unmanageable. Like encouraging children to go to preschool so they can learn the necessary skills to be proficient in school before dumping them in the deep end in kindergarten. When I started school kindergarten was a half day affair and was more about learning to socialize with peers and get used to being away from mom than anything incredibly educationally relevant. I never had kindergarten homework. Today kids go to kindergarten the whole day, they have actual lessons. They are expected to do homework including math that I didn’t technically have to do until first or second grade. I would have handled the academic expectations well but what I really needed from kindergarten was exactly what I got. Now to get that kind of start kids have to spend at least a year in preschool. Of course most families today have two working parents and daycare and preschool is a necessary tool for raising their children. To me it is a sadly early stitch. Another figurative example would be the various Scared Straight programs focused on keeping kids out of jail. They introduce the adolescents to the realities of the life path they are heading down. The stitch in time is giving them a one or two day taste of jail to prevent them from spending their lives there. I have been watching “Beyond Scared Straight.” It is full of convicts telling kids to shape up and that they wished they had been able to go through a program like the kids were. They readily admit that ending up in jail is just a slippery slope into spending a life there. You go to jail, you end up with a record. That record follows you and makes it hard to find employment to get credit to buy a house or car. One conviction can lead to a life spent in poverty with no way out, and poverty leads to more crime especially if crime has worked for you in the past. Arrests build on arrests and month turn into years turn into decades. That is a lot of stitches that could have been saved. Literally or figuratively, A stitch in time really does save nine… or many more. I think this proverb definitely should have been at the top of our prompt list. I think the only one that could possibly belong above it is Don’t judge a book by its cover, but that is a whole different entry and I have a short story to write too. 774 words Prompt ▼ |
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