The Key to The City

     My cousin was once honored in small ceremony where he was given the key to the city. He wore the special key around his neck at all times. He could go to the diner when it was closed and demand for the owners to open it and serve him the blue plate special. He could go to miniature golf course and get in a game a few hours before they opened. He could go anywhere and do anything at any hour of the day. This, of course, eventually became a problem. Whenever the business owners saw my cousin walking down the street, they'd all run out of the back-doors and hide out in the one place that my cousin would never go - the library.
     They would complain about his latest antics, how he was keeping them from sleeping, and how he was not considering how much he was costing them - to fire up the bright lights at night or run the machinery for only his use. They all wished that he had never earned the key to the city. They were also all unaware that I was in the stacks looking for some dusty old books about Christianity and had over-heard them.
     I called together a meeting of my family at a time when my cousin was away for the week-end, we talked about his behavior and decided to come up with a plan. We called the city council together and requested a slight alteration to the rules for the key of the city. We also requested that they choose a new kind of special key that was different to distinguish it from the old kind. This would, we hoped, make it possible for the business-owners to say no whenever the request was unreasonable and too  costly.
     The first day back, my cousin was certainly surprised. Most people still complied with some requests, but now there was no more mid-night mini-golf or breakfast at the diner at 3:00 a.m.. People discovered that he was also a nice guy provided that he had a full night's sleep.

     In the same way, I feel that anybody who is given privilege or superior status should not pull out that status at every opportunity to take advantage of those around them. I feel that there comes a time when a person should pull out their 'status' card and rip it up. Being above others will only create an environment of resentment and anger - being completely equal is the only way that we can all respect each other for how alike and how different we all are.