Falling Into My Own Trap

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    The year was 1962. I had turned just turned thirteen. Though I was in the eighth grade, and working part-time in a plant nursery after school, I maintained more childish notions, as well.
 

    A friend of mine suggested that we build a fort. It was a magnificent little structure, but only we might have characterized it as such. It was actually little more than a wooden shack. But we were innovative. We decided we needed a trap door in the floor of the hut, and we made it so. The trap door led to an underground tunnel, constructed of 55 gallon drums, with the ends knocked out. We were getting downright fancy! David and I actually spent the night in the tunnel, at times.

     But we were far from being finished with our work of art. Some adolescents are subject to a mild form of Paranoia, and we were no exception. I came up with the idea of setting Vietnam-style traps around the little building. We set twelve or fifteen of the traps, digging foot deep holes, and laying blocks of wood, peppered with nails in the bottom of each. Finally, the holes were covered over with small branches and grass.

     I asked my mother to visit our hut, and she finally found time to walk the two hundred yards from the house, to investigate our work of art. As she walked slowly along the trail, with my three year old sister in her arms, one of her feet disappeared from sight! I had forgotten the large trap we had dug on the main trail! She screamed, immediately dropped to a seated position, and began to wrench the nasty thing from her foot. Just as quickly she began to confront my stupidity. “Royce, what’s wrong with you? What were you thinking? If your sister had been walking ahead of me, these nails would have gone totally through her foot!”

      I can’t imagine why, but my Mother decided not to tour my fort that day. Somehow she regained her footing and composure, and stormed off towards our house. On her way out of our “contonement area” she was heard to say, “Son, you had better cover every one of your traps. This isn’t right. You could hurt someone seriously!”

      Well, you can imagine the shock that registered on my face. What had happened to her wasn’t my purpose or agenda. Our little traps were meant for “our enemies.”

     So, I set to work covering over the traps. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t diagrammed the locations of these little weapons. I fell into a “woe is me” attitude, and begin to think that I deserved the same fate as my Mother. I remember saying, “I hope I fall in one.” Well, I had covered several traps when, you guessed it… one of my feet disappeared from sight. 

     I had fallen in to my own trap.

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "Unconventional Devotions" Copyright 2005

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