A Cautionary Tale

I heard loud (happy) noises coming from the kids' room the other day. When I went to investigate I saw blankets and pillows all over the floor. Horatio was standing on a little pink safe (piggy bank) that doubles as a door stop and it was about to fall over.

"That doesn't look like a good place to stand, Horatio." I told him.

He took one foot off, "I just stand on it little bit. Little bit, okay Momma?"

"No, not a little bit. No standing on the safe."

Then Virginia explained the game. "The blankets are poison. We can't step on the poison."

And I had this storyteller-parent moment where I knew that I had the perfect story for this situation.

"Come over here, guys. Let me tell you a story..."

One time when I was a kid, maybe a little older than Virginia, my sister, Aunt 'Manda and I were playing "alligators." That is a game where there are alligators on the floor so you can't touch it. We were in my bedroom, moving from the bed, to some pillows, to my desk, to the back of the desk chair, and then we would reach back and climb to the bed again.
Somehow we both ended up on the desk chair at the same time. We weren't in the seat of the chair. In order to reach the bed we had to put our feet on the rolling feet of the chair and hold on to the back. One person at a time on the chair had been fine, but with both of us on the back of the chair and both of us leaning to reach the bed, the chair fell over on us.
BOOM! At first we were both stunned just to be under the heavy desk chair. But then I realized that my hand was hurt. My right hand was holding onto the outside of the chair and it had been pinned between the chair and the wall. The molding at the bottom of the wall had scraped off all the skin from inside one of my fingers, which was also swollen and bruised.
Now I had a dilemma. I was hurt and I wanted my parents to comfort me. But I also had been doing something I wasn't supposed to do. To admit my injury was to admit wrongdoing.
Well, I tried to get away with it anyway. I went and told my dad, "My desk chair fell on me...somehow. And now my finger is hurt."
My dad said, "I know what you were doing and I bet it hurt."
I didn't exactly get in trouble, but I didn't get sympathy either. No kisses, no bandaid from Dad.
I sadly got my own bandaid and found something else to play.

Then I looked at my kids. "Do you understand?"

"Yes!" they said.

I left the room feeling pretty satisfied. A few minutes later they were both on the bed. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"We're playing alligators!"

Is this the reason I played "alligators" instead of "hot lava" or "poison"?