Sauna stones — a cautionary tale

Once upon a time there was a grandpa whose sons and their wives liked to visit on summer Saturday afternoons. They brought their young children to play and enjoy the sauna. Because the grandpa and his sons and their wives had many things to say to each other, the young ones often had to wait long hours for their parents to “finish” talking. (Yes, Finnish was often the language they used.)

And so it was one day that, having run out of amusements, those youngsters spied an opportunity. There in the sauna were piles of rocks, which were not doing anything useful and which they could carry out to the yard and to build things — bridges, castles, towers and any number of imaginary dwellings. What a discovery!

But then, a parent wondered why their previously noisy needy children were now unusually quiet and sought out said children. And that parent saw large stones no longer in their sacred heating places but were getting dirty in the garden and the ditch! 

How could this have happened? Did the children not realize the damage they had done? Would the stones ever be returned to their exact location in the sauna? 

And how could it be impressed upon said children that they should never EVER do this again?

Nikki