The Mouse Trap

Yesterday, 21.12.2018, a cruise ship – Diamond Princess – docked at Kota Kinabalu port. My wife and I met up with some friends from Australia.

One of my friends, Iain Loganathan, who had bought my book ‘Shut Down Kids’ told me that he had bought my book but has yet to read it as his two children are not dyslexic.

Well, firstly that book is not on dyslexia but about kids who are unable to read because of confusion as a result of wrong teaching of sounds of alphabets by teachers.

Secondly, one does not have to have dyslexic kids or kids who cannot read due to any reason at all to read a book on why kids shut down from learning to read.


This then reminded me of a story I had read on the internet.

The story below, I hope will educate us that we are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to keep each other informed. Each of us is a vital thread in another person’s tapestry.

The story

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. “What food might this contain?” the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.
Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house – like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral; the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember, when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.
Author Unknown