Safety Sucks

They were having so much fun upstairs playing deep-sea fishing and later deep-sea diving. I could hear the laughter and action all the way downstairs. And then they came down, so proudly, to show me their scuba gear: plastic-paned backpacks fitting tightly over their heads. My heart skipped a beat to see their beaming faces steaming up the see-through window. And so I took the diving helmets off and told them why they couldn't play that way anymore. Oh, the tears, the thrashing on the floor, the refusal to admit anything else as a suitable replacement. And now, almost an hour later, things aren't quite back to happy levels. It almost makes me sorry that I even enforce health-and-safety rules. Until I remember the steamy plastic. Ugh.