Generally, it's a good rule to be particular about what you say. An off-hand remark, taken literally, can have devastating effects. Such was the case when my daughter, Lori, was about ten-years-old and was having trouble with a bully in the neighborhood. She told me the A-hole, an older, bigger boy was trying to "grab" her.
I told her I couldn't be there to protect her all the time and she should do the following. First, stay away from him. Second, if he continued, to let me know and I'd straighten him out. Third, if he actually did grab her, to find the biggest thing she could and hit him over the head with it. The next day she used the third method.
Sean and Kenny, her brothers, and Lori came running into the house." He grabbed me," Lori said," and I found something to hit him with."
"What was that?" I asked.
"This," she said, displaying a length of 1" galvanized pipe. "And I hit him on the head and he fell over in the ditch beside the road and started to bleed."
I rushed to the scene, wondering if she'd killed him and running the headlines through my head: "Chief's daughter takes his advice and bludgeons another child."
I breathed a sigh of relief when we arrived in the combat zone and the victim wasn't in sight. We went down the street to his home where we found him on the front porch with his father, his head wrapped in a bloody towel. Expecting the worst I asked how he was.
"He'll live," the gruff father said. "He's a dumbass, you know, and best place to hit him, and not do any damage, is in the head. Nothing there."
But, he was smart enough not to mess with my daughter, Lori, again.
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