From A Man Called Peter by Catherine Marshall
There was the story about the delightfully naughty little boy who squeezed toothpaste in neat zebra like stripes across the back of the dozing cat, then added insult to injury by shaking all the apples off the trees in the orchard, and whacking off a sleeping barber’s hair.
In the movie cartoon from which Peter derived this little gem, the boy was required to go back and put everything right- and did. “But” said Peter, “in real life, boys and girls, you can’t do that. Life has certain finalities. You know, you can’t fasten apples back on a tree and make them grow. There is nothing quite so final as the barbers’ scissors. And say, have you ever tried to push toothpaste back into a tube? It just can’t be done. I’m a Scotsman, and I ought to know! It’s just the same with the unkind things we say about each other. You can’t take them back. All we can do is ask Jesus to forgive us. Then ask the person to whom we said the unkind things to forgive us, and try never to say them again. But the best thing is not to squeeze the tube in the first place!”
