Once upon a Tuesday: A political parable about running with scissors in America

Once upon a Tuesday … there was a schoolhouse in a small rural town where some young children spent their time learning in class, while others goofed around at play.

Every morning semi-trucks would roar by the schoolhouse without regard to the speed limit or the safety of the students. It would vibrate and shake for most of the day. Some parents had complained that the big trucks should be rerouted to another road to protect the children. Other parents complained that re-directing traffic would slow the transport of goods and hold back the progress of the local economy.

A bell rang each period with a single chime to dismiss the children from class. Two chimes signaled either the mid-morning or mid-afternoon break from studies. Those daily breaks from learning allowed children to run around outside in the courtyard behind the school.

Some parents felt that it was more healthy if their children had a release for their bottled-up energy. But other parents felt the breaks were too frequent and interrupted the process of education.

The teachers did not mind the numerous distractions from classwork, because the curriculum they taught was mostly fictional. Some parents had felt that a good education would help their children succeed in life. But other parents believed that the more their children could think for themselves, the less parental control they would have. Those parents also forced teachers to babysit the children, claiming it was a more productive use of their time.

On this particular Tuesday, as the children began running around the courtyard on their break, some engaged in healthy exercise while others chased down weaker students to torment. As a dance of dysfunction played out across the courtyard, a loud crash brought everyone to a complete halt.

The tire of a semi-truck blew out as it raced by the schoolhouse, causing it to jackknife and barrel into the courtyard’s restraining fence. Some parents had wanted to replace the barrier with a chainlink fence for both safety and aesthetics, while other parents were content to let the original wooden fence rot as it always had. They also blamed the school administration for their children having perpetual splinters from climbing the fence, and for not teaching them better how to climb obstacles.

Ultimately, the type of fence would not have mattered as a crash barrier because the force of the truck’s momentum drove it for dozens of yards across the courtyard until it struck the schoolhouse. Once the capsized vehicle came to a stop after cracking open the empty library which had once been home to books, the contents of its payload spilled out in every direction. After the smoke cleared, the semi-truck’s driver remained sitting in his cab, uninterested in the fate of his cargo.

Across the ground, gleaming in the sun, was a brand of scissors known as the sharpest in the world for its ability to slice through nearly any material. Many of the cutting tools remained closed, but others had broken free of their shipping restraints. It appeared as if a sea of angry metal teeth had washed across the courtyard.

For a time the students just stood in silence, watching the spectacle before them. But just as some teachers began telling them to stay back and remain cautious, many students rushed forward to inspect the scissors. The cautionary words from some teachers drifted away with the wind as student after student picked up a pair of scissors.

Some teachers made more effort to pull the children away from the scissors. Other teachers just laughed and sorted through the piles of scissors for their own pair. Some students stood back and watched the chaos, scratching their heads.

Quite soon some of the students began running around, holding their scissors with the sharp end pointed up. They made a game of it, chasing each other and yelling as they pumped their arms. Some students had a scissor in each hand as they ran.

About that time some parents arrived in a panic, hearing about the semi-truck crash. Some were in disbelief over what they saw in the school courtyard, other parents felt a rush of joy and joined in.

While many parents picked up scissors and began running around with them, also with the sharp ends pointed up, other parents were pleading with everyone – some of them children, some of them teachers, and some of them parents – to stop running around with the scissors in their hands.

Local TV news crews who had received a tip about the semi-truck crash went to investigate at the schoolhouse. When they arrived to see the jamboree of running bodies and sharp metal, some tried to report about the danger. Other TV news crews laughed at their distortion of the truth, saying that everything was fine and everyone there was enjoying their scissor playtime.

Other news reporters diverted to the local hospital instead of the schoolhouse and waited. When those reporters arrived, they discovered the hospital was closed, and only a small walk-in clinic was operational.

Some taxpayers, who were the parents of the school children, had felt the hospital rewarded people who did not take care of their health. They complained that since they were not sick and did not need a hospital, they would not pay taxes to support others who were irresponsible with their medical condition.

But there were other taxpayers who knew that everyone would get sick at some point, and getting sick was beyond their control – especially when so many people never washed their hands or kept their sick children from attending school. So those taxpayers worked hard to keep a meager medical facility open that could offer minimal care. But the walk-in clinic was little more than a bandaid dispensary.

While the reporters who went to the clinic stood around considering what to do next, the first wave of screaming children arrived. Followed by successive waves of teachers, parents, and even TV news crews, all screaming, all holding their eyes in terrible pain.

One of the school children, who had listened to a teacher and did not pick up any scissors, walked to the clinic and saw another round of chaos there, as dozens of people tried to fit into a tiny room – the only place in the vast and now empty hospital that now offered any medical attention.

The student saw a reporter sitting on a bench, also watching the spectacle of half-blinded people holding back the blood squirting from their faces, unable to dislodge an impaled pair of scissors in one or both eyes.

The reporter and the student sat there for a while. They listened to the parents screaming about how there were no doctors to offer medical attention, even though they had refused to pay taxes to keep the hospital open. Other parents screamed about how the teachers had allowed the children to run around with scissors in their hands, even though they had joined the children themselves and bullied anyone who tried to stop them.

And some parents screamed at the TV news crews for not reporting on the dangers of the road so the scissor semi-truck would not have crashed, even though they ignored warnings reported about traffic dangers. While those individuals ranted with blame, they also pushed each other out of the way trying to either obtain or apply bandaids to the gaping wounds.

The reporter and the student on the bench watched the situation for a long time. The exchanges became more violent, as some slightly injured parents used their scissors to more seriously injure other parents.

Beyond the clinic were other students, other parents, and other teachers who had pleaded for everyone to listen. But they could only watch in horror, until the bloody mob covered in scissors protruding from numerous punctures turned their attention to those who were not injured and began chasing them, with screams that the injuries they suffered were all their fault.

The reporter and the student watched the mess continue to unfold, sitting in the middle of the maelstrom but completely untouched by the madness.

The student finally looked up and said, “Everyone knows it is not a good idea to run with scissors. So why did they do it?”

The reporter thought for a bit before he replied, writing some of his thoughts in a small notebook. “It is in our nature to ignore the truth we do not want to see.”

A puzzled look washed over the boy’s face before he replied, “But now, because they were running with scissors, they really cannot see.”

“Exactly,” said the reporter. “But now, they are together in their blindness.”