A Spanking Carol
Chapter 4
When Alice regained her vision, she saw a man dressed in a red fur suit in front of her. He had on a conical hat. "Who are you supposed to be?" she asked.
"I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present," replied the man nonchalantly.
"Christmas Present?" asked Alice in confusion. "Don't you mean Spankings Present?"
"No, I mean Christmas Present," said the man curtly. "The Ghost of Spankings Present had another human to attend to, so I'm filling in for him. That's the thing about the present. The past stretches on for many years. The future for you humans stretches on for about another five hundred years. But there's only one present. It makes scheduling a bit complicated sometimes."
"Wait!" cried Alice. "What's going to happen in five hundred years?"
"Nevermind about that," said the ghost irritably. "I'm not here for that. I'm here to show you another vision about spanking and give you another lecture."
"Sorry, but what does a Christmas ghost know about spanking?" asked Alice.
The ghost rolled his eyes. "Ever hear of Krampus? Doesn't matter. Let's go!"
There was another white flash and Alice found herself in a spacious bedroom that clearly belonged to a woman. She saw a woman who appeared to be in her forties seated on an ottoman. Standing in front of her looking nervous was William. Alice absentmindedly wondered how sore his butt still was after the paddling she had given him earlier that day.
"You know the rules," said William's mother. "If you are spanked at school, then you get another one from me when you get home."
"His butt has to be way too sore for another spanking," said Alice. "I gave it to him really good."
"This is actually very common," said the ghost. "She is far from the only parent who has this rule. In fact, most of the students you paddle get another spanking when they arrive home. So when you choose to spank a student once, you are also causing them to be spanked a second time later."
"That's not what I want!" said Alice. "When I paddle a student, it's meant to be severe enough to be a complete punishment on its own. Any more on top of what I give them would be excessive. I should communicate this to parents!"
"It won't do much good," said the ghost. "Not all parents hate your methods. Parents like William's mother put a lot of trust in you. In fact, if you hadn't paddled William today, he wouldn't be about to be spanked right now."
"Well if I had given him detention or whatever, his mother would still know about it," replied Alice.
The ghost shook his head. "But you wouldn't have. If you were willing to even consider forgoing a paddling, then you would also be willing to listen and hear his side of things. I can see alternate paths, and I know that if you had given William a chance to explain himself, you would have realized that he didn't deserve to be in trouble."
"Well his mother isn't listening to him either," said Alice. "That's true," said the ghost. "It's quite unfortunate that there are many parents who are like this. I'm visiting you and not her because you do so much more harm. Despite the unfairness of this situation, she is generally an excellent mother. Her only mistake here is trusting your authority more than she trusts her own son. Had you been willing to listen to William, she would have listened to him too."
"That makes no sense!" cried Alice. "Why would she be so blindly trusting? I've never even met the woman before!"
"It's not so much that she trusts you specifically," replied the ghost. "Humans are prone to the sunken costs fallacy. You would rather rationalize an injustice than admit that it happened. His mother has two options here. Either she can conclude that her son was unjustly punished or she can decide that the punishment was fully deserved. Since she doesn't want to believe the first scenario would actually happen, she defaults to believing the second."
"I guess I've made some mistakes," said Alice. "I've seen enough. Can we go now?"
"Not quite yet," replied the ghost. "I want you to see this."
"Enough excuses!" said William's mother suddenly. "I am going to spank you and that's final!" She unbuttoned his jeans and then quickly yanked down his jeans and underwear. She hauled him over her lap.
Once William was over her lap, she ran a hand across his bruised buttocks. "Your Principal really got you good with that paddle. This is going to be pretty unpleasant for you, but it's what you've earned for yourself."
She grabbed a hairbrush from the nearby nightstand. When she began smacking his butt with the wooden hairbrush, his howls of pain were immediately at full volume.
Despite her objections to a double punishment, Alice couldn't help but be a little impressed. "Now that's one hell of a spanking. Maybe it's undeserved, but I wish more parents were willing to spank like this. We would have a lot fewer discipline issues in school if things were handled properly at home."
"Maybe so," said the ghost. "Or maybe there is a different perspective you should see. We will be leaving now."
The world went black once more.