The Parable of the Butt-Rubbed Tic Tac

Most of my bright ideas come to me in the shower. I read something once about how the thousands of drops of water hitting a person's back is thought to stimulate, well, thought. Who can say. This bright idea came to me while I couldn't sleep. That doesn't happen too often – me not being able to sleep. I pondered over how to convey the concept of what lying does to parents (and others). And a light bulb went off.

I purchased a container of white tic tacs (any color would do). I took them home. I debated on whether I had to do the deed or if I could get by with lying (oh the irony). I debated on how to commit the grossification. They sat on the counter for a couple weeks. One Monday evening I decided to go for it. I donned a glove, removed 1 tic tac, rubbed it on a butt and carefully replaced it into the plastic container. Immediately following glove disposal, I placed a piece of duct tape over the tic tac opening – cause, gross and ewww. I didn't tell Aaron about my evil plan.

We started Family Home Evening (a weekly family meeting with a song and focused topic for discussion). I held up the tic tac container and it this is basically what followed:

Me: Who would like one of these tic tacs

All Kids: Me! Me!

Me: What if I told you that one of these was rubbed on a butt? Would you still want one?

Joel solo: yeah!!!

Me: [hands thrown up in frustration] Well there goes my whole point... Joel, I'm not joking, one of these got rubbed on a butt. And not the soft part, but the gross inside part.

Joel: [after a pause] No!!!

Katie: Did you really do that?

Me: Yes, because I knew you guys would ask. Now, back to the lesson.... There is only ONE butt-rubbed tic tac in here, the rest of them should be fine.

Katie: Not the ones it touched!

Me. Okay, but I put it back in at the top, the bottom ones are probably fine. Does anyone want to risk it? Look how many there are, you are likely to pick a not-gross one.

All: [thought] No.

Me: These tic tacs are like the things you say. Most of what comes out of your mouth is good and the truth but every once and a while you say a lie, which is like a butt-rubbed tic tac. See, the thing is, we don't know which one is the butt-rubbed tic tac and which isn't. Do you see that? We can't tell. It only takes ONE lie to ruin a whole lot of what you say. Do you see why trusting you after a lie is so hard?

Kids: Yeah.

Me: Cause we don't know which is the butt-rubbed tic tac, or lie, and which isn't.

Aaron and I then helped each child (even the 2 year old) to summarize the lesson. Aaron was impressed with the object lesson but upset that I “wasted” a whole container of tic tacs. I think it was a good investment. We saw the lightbulbs going off as understanding crossed their faces and hearing Aurora say “butt-rubbed tic tac” is hilarious!