My inversion table came today. It’s an impressive assembly of metal and plastic that looks vaguely like a modern rendering of the medieval rack.
That must be what inspired Jacinta to tell the kids that it is a torture device that hangs people upside down. She added something creative about a new approach to discipline and addressing bad behavior, but they never got that far. They emphatically denied that it is a torture device, and they emphatically denied that it hangs people upside down.
Once I had it assembled and they could see that, indeed, it hangs people upside down, they grew more quiet. And then when I got on it myself, they were completely set at ease.
[Blogging question: Is it redundant to italicize “emphatically”, since italics are a form of emphasis, or is that a kind of beautiful fitting of the symbol to the thing symbolized? I leave you to decide.]
