Who Stole Your Tower?

Writes Parrish Miller,

Miss Henderson was busy helping one of her kindergarten students fold a paper airplane when suddenly little Tommy's voice rang out above the gentle murmur of students at play. "She stole my tower!"

Miss Henderson quickly headed for the trouble, as neither shouting nor stealing were tolerated in her class. "Who stole your tower?" she asked him. "Susie!" replied Tommy loudly, pointing his finger at the girl working quietly at the next table.

Susie was the most advanced student in the kindergarten class, and could have easily placed in the first grade, but her parents didn't want her to be younger than all her other classmates, so they opted to put her in kindergarten instead. Today she was quietly building a tower out of blocks – it was actually one of the highest towers that Miss Henderson had ever seen a student build.

"Your tower is still in front of you," she observed to Timmy, "as is a basket of unused blocks. What exactly did Susie 'steal' from you?"

"My idea," pouted Timmy. "I started building a tower first."

"So continue building it," said Miss Henderson. "Nobody's stopping you."

"It's no fun if Susie builds one too!" Timmy whined. "Make her stop! Only I get to build a tower today."

"No, Timmy, you're wrong." Miss Henderson was very serious now. "Susie may build whatever she likes – as may you, but you accused her of stealing when she had not actually done so, and that is wrong." Miss Henderson stood up and pointed across the room. "Five minutes in the timeout chair for lying, Timmy, and don't ever let me catch you doing so again!"

Timmy jumped up angrily, knocked over his block tower, and headed for the corner.

Today Timmy works for the MPAA as an attorney in their copyright enforcement department...