Pride and Puddles

It was a typical spring day with its mixture of rainstorms and sunbursts, and Mommy and I were out for a walk. We had gone our usual route and were bound for home when we came to a very large puddle. This puddle had somehow grown larger since we passed it just twenty minutes before, and though we were able to walk around it then, it now covered the whole path. Mommy began to try to find the best way to get across without getting wet or muddy, but I stopped to ponder a more perplexing problem. Unlike Mommy, I was not trying to figure out how to get across the puddle without getting wet and muddy. I was wondering whether or not I was too old to splash through the puddle, instead of going around as Mommy was doing.

The ladylike thing would have been to gather up my skirts and tiptoe gingerly through the spongy grass at the puddle’s edge. That would have gotten me past the difficulty in the most dignified manner, but such a lovely large puddle was too good to miss. : ) Either way I risked slipping in the mud and falling face first, like Anne in the cabbage field, getting both wet and muddy.

So there I was, standing at the edge of the puddle trying to discern how deep it was and how waterproof my boots really were. I apparently have not yet gained that kind of pride that supposedly comes with age to keep one from doing childish things like splashing through puddles, but I do have a glimmering of it that at least made me question the propriety of doing such a silly thing. Finally, I made my decision. I walked right through the middle of the puddle –being very careful not to splash.