They were all crammed into the small kitchen. All four of them. Deciding what to eat.

“Should we have fish and chips?” asked Sannah, the youngest member of the family.

“Or should we eat out” suggested Adam. Their other child.

“We ate out last week, can’t be eating out every weekend, we just don’t have that kind of money at the moment – tough economic times and all that…” Typical dad!!

“Let’s just make fish and chips. We all like it and it’s cheap enough and it’s what we would have got if we went out anyway.” Ah – how the mother has an amazing ability to keep everyone happy. Gotta love her….

So that was that. They all dived in and began the routine of cooking fish and chips. Sannah ran to the freezer and dug out the fish and chips. Adam ran to the fridge and got the cheese and frozen vegetables. All the while mum and dad were busy setting up the chip pan and turning on the oven and finding everything else that’s needed like the cheese grater and tin opener for the baked beans tin.

Dad was stirring the chips, mum was loading the fish into the oven Adam was grating the cheese and Sannah was pouring the beans into a bowl to heat them in the microwave.

The kitchen door was open on this half warm evening. Does life get any better than this?

It wasn’t long before the room got ever so slightly smoky and set the smoke alarm in the hallway off. “Sannah, run. Quick. Grab a letter and fan the smoke detector to shut it up.”

“Why me?” she protested “I can’t even reach it”

“Go half way up the stairs and do it. Hurry up.” Dad shouted, panicked, thinking the house alarm will go off.

So off she went, in slow motion as always, grabbed a letter from the shoe rack, went half way up the stairs and fanned the smoke alarm until it stopped.

As she returned to the kitchen, she closed the door behind her. It was a real “A small step for man, a giant leap for mankind” moment. Had she realised? Was she really that smart? She’s only 6. Can’t be, can it?

So she carried on with the beans. Everyone finished what they were doing and they all sat and enjoyed the meal and had a good laugh.

A couple of weeks later, on a rainy Tuesday evening, as dad was doing the roti, Sannah ran up and slammed the kitchen door shut. So it’s true. She HAS realised. Or has she?

“Sannah, come here!” shouted dad.

“Yes daddy” she said entering the kitchen closing the door behind her.

“Why did you close the door?” He questioned

“The smoke alarm will go off again if I don’t. It does it all the time if the door is open.”

Is it that she is just lazy and was taking the easy way out OR are we, as humans, programmed to behave in a 'prevention is better than cure' way……???