Last night was punishment night. Lion had three pennies in his punishment bank. Uh oh. He asked me earlier in the day what those three pennies represented. How many swats? I’ve never really had a correlation between the amount of pennies and the amount of swats. To me, each penny represents an infraction. Each infraction has its own severity. If he got one drop of spaghetti sauce on himself, that should count less than spilling his drink all over himself. Did he eat before me at breakfast and then turn around and do it again at lunch? But Lion was looking for a number.
When I picked up the paddle I told him I was going to do twenty hard swats and see how he did with that before I decided to add any more. I turns out twenty was too much. Five was too much. The second swat landed on the sweet spot of his left cheek. He immediately told me that was enough. Really? I don’t remember it being his place to decide what was enough. I told him to get up on his knees so I could try to avoid the painful spot. A few swats later and he was whimpering again. He said he couldn’t take any more. I told him he would take ten total swats and I wouldn’t hit as hard from then on. I thought that was a suitable compromise since he was definitely having an issue, but I didn’t want to stop just because he wanted to stop. We decided maybe he needs maintenance swats again to toughen up his butt.
This morning I said I’d do some practice swatting tonight so I don’t damage the sensitive Lion hide. He said his hide is tough and he’s just being a big baby. A baby? Babies wear diapers. He should be careful about that. Oops. [Lion — Oh crap] He hadn’t thought of that. Somehow I don’t think he’ll be a baby about the swats tonight. He does not want to wind up in diapers. It just proves he has to watch himself. You never know what 2.0 will come up with next.
