What Are The Rules?

Underneath the big tree past the meadow and before the mountain three little Mice were meeting up in their secret group.

The secret group had not quite been defined yet. The Mice didn’t know what the rules of the secret group were, who they were keeping out, or what they were advocating. The only rule they knew for certain was that only the three of them were allowed in.

“Hey, can I tell my friend Larry about our group? He might want to join.” Said the first mouse, named Blink.

The other two mice could not believe what they were hearing. This was blasphemous! They only had one rule so far and Blink wasn’t even following that!

“Yeah I guess so,” answered the second mouse, Horace.

“Cool, I’ll text him now,” Blink replied.

Now the third mouse was left alone in his shock, she thought that everyone was on the same page here. Especially since they only had one rule to begin with. Three mice, one secret group, end of discussion!

“I thought we had decided that the rules of this secret group were that only us three were allowed in it!” Exclaimed the third mouse, Leela, “What’s the big idea here?”

Blink and Horace looked at each other, confused.

“When did we make that rule?” Horace asked Leela.

“We made it,” Leela, answered, “Um, we made it...”

Leela could not remember having made that rule at all. Usually, she had a pretty good memory for things like this because she’s a stickler for rules but without any memory of making this rule, Leela couldn’t really push back on whether or not someone else could join their secret club.

“Fine I guess you guys are right,” Leela conceded.

The three mice sat together trying to think of other rules they could make to define their three-possibly, foursome, of a secret group.

“No wait! Look at this text thread!” Leela shouted as she held up her phone, “Blink titled the group secret group, us three only, question mark,”

Blink and Horace looked at the thread and had to admit that Leel was right and they had already broken the club rules.

“Well, I guess this secret club is done now,” Leela said, gathering her things.

Horace and Blink agreed and began to pack up their stuff to go home too. After all, if a secret club can’t even stick to the very first rule they ever made they probably wouldn’t last very long anyway—no use trying to salvage anything from what is already broken.

Sunk cost fallacy.

So the mice went home and spent the nights alone. Not fun. But it was important for everyone to spend some time thinking about the rules they broke and how they would never let that happen again.