Fool me once…. shame on you.  Fool me twice… shame on me.

Tonight I was putting chemicals in the pool.  I looked down and saw a Honey Bee struggling near the surface of the water.  So, I reached in and flipped the little guy out.

A couple of seconds later… that little drunken sailor ambled his way back to the edge of the pool and fell in again.

Dag nab it.  I reached in again, and this time scooped him out… a little bit further from water’s edge.  The next thing I know… old bumble-head is back struggling in the water.

Third time’s a charm.  I put aside my apprehension of being stung…. and picked up that little Honey Bee.  I carried him several feet from the pool, placing him near the mulched area.

A little while later,  I walked back that way.  He was not where I had place him.  No bee.  That made me happy.  Perhaps he dried off his little winged body and flew back to the hive.

Wouldn’t you know?  That dude was meandering back toward the sweet smell of chlorine and muriatic acid.  I decided not to intervene… he was on his own.  I mean… this could go on all night.  Or perhaps…. he was simply wanting to do a few laps.

Yet….  I imagine tomorrow morning I will find him in the skimmer.  And I’ll feel terrible.  But I have to remember that opening phrase.

Or as George W. Bush once put it… back in 2002….  when he was visiting Nashville, TN.  He so aptly obscured …. “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

Which brings me to this.  We all get fooled in life.  In a variety of different ways…. places… or circumstances…

I guess the important thing is to learn from our mistakes…. and to try not getting stung in the process.  Most of us can do this quietly, and in our own awareness.  But not me…. I have to let the world know what a schmuck I am… and share it here on the The Big Can Do.

Yep.  That’s a Big Can Do.

A fool and his money are soon elected.  – Will Rogers