Page 9 - SB-Newton and the Needy Newts
P. 9
They had all these problems because they wanted others to admire their stripes. It seemed to me that they had gone to a lot of trouble and suffered a lot of discomfort for the approval of others. I thought that this was about as silly a thing these needy newts would ever
do ... but I was wrong.
Remember how I told you that one of the differences between the newts and frogs was that newts had tails. Well guess what? Newts are desperate to have the longest tail. By desperate, I mean that they will go to all kinds of trouble so that they can brag about having the longest tail. One of the things I saw a lot of them do is pull on their tails for hours thinking that this pulling would make their tails longer.
Now like I have said, newts really need each other’s approval. Even for something as insignificant as tail length. Some spent so much time pulling on their tail that they forgot to eat or drink water. What would be like if you spent so much time getting dressed for school (making sure that your hair is perfect and so on) that you did not have time to do your homework.
I think you can see the problem with this. You can be so worried about what others might think or say that you neglect the really important stuff like studying. The same thing happened to the newts. They became so weak from not eating and not drinking that when they pulled on their tales ... they broke off.
6