(A Chinese tale retold)
There once was a man who loved to take a little something he liked here, and a little something he liked there. He might take a gift card with a decoration he liked while visiting a friend's house, or cut himself a little piece of chocolate cake when there was a birthday party going on in the bowling alley down the street. Anyway, you get the point.One day he was taking an afternoon walk, strolling around, in the neighborhood and he heard something jingle in the wind.
" Ah... what a nice sound!" he thought.
The man followed the sound and soon came across a house with a bell dangling from a nail right above the door.
"Oh, how beautiful that bell is, and what a melancholy sound it makes!" He said aloud. The man felt eager greediness rise up through his body and sway in his throat.
"I could just take the bell. It is just a little tiny thing! It would be worth it. Right?" the man asked himself. He made up his mind and went home. Not to get ready for dinner, but to get ready for his midnight bell robbery.
At night, the man tiptoed through the stillness of the neighborhood. This night was a perfect night! There was absolutely no wind, unlike the afternoon. He soon found the house he was looking for, the house with the wooden stairs and porch. The man slowly climbed up the stairs to the door and placed his feet gently on top of the welcome mat. The moonlight settled atop the bell and gave it an eerie glow.
Right before he plucked the bell from its nail, he suddenly realized something, "since it is such a silent night, if I take the bell, it ought to make a noise! Then the people in this house will discover me! What am I going to do?"
The man took a while to think. "Ding!" He thought of an idea! The man took out his pocket notebook and ripped two pages out. (by the way, he stole this notebook!) Then he scrunched each entry into a ball. The man stuffed one ball into each ear using his paper inventions as earplugs.
"Now nobody will hear my bell!" He thought, "I can't even hear myself!"
Bliss, the man plucked the bell off of the nail. It jingled very loudly. Not realizing his foolish mistake, the man got caught.
You might think this man's mistake was very obvious, but if you pay attention closely, many of these mistakes happen in the world around you!
