Once there was a snowman. He lived in a town populated only by little boys and girls. There were two types of children, at least as far as the snowman was concerned: huggers and stabbers. Huggers would come up to the snowman and throw their little arms around him. That made him feel good. Stabbers on the other hand would run up to him in the same manner as any hugger child, but then would pull out a sharp implement, such as a knife or shovel, and stick it deep into his softness. This hurt the snowman.

Unfortunately there was no way for the snowman to know by simply looking at the children which were huggers and which were stabbers. He could never know for sure until he was either stabbed or hugged. As much as he loved the hugs, the sharp thrusts from the stabbers were too painful to take for the snowman, and he eventually decided that he no choice but to avoid the children altogether.

Cutting off contact with the children of the town proved to be more difficult than he feared it would be. For one thing, he loved the company of the children, and often missed them. A larger problem, however, was the fact that the children could run so much faster than he could. Both the huggers and stabbers had no problem catching up to the snowman even as he ran in the opposite direction, always resulting in the subsequent embrace or violent attack that he was trying to avoid. In the frustration and growing desperation of the situation, the snowman became conscious of something he’d never known about himself before. Whether it was a hidden gift that was always there or something that simply developed as a result of his circumstances, he didn’t know. As it turned out, this snowman had the ability to protect himself from the children by breathing fire. The first few children to learn of the snowman’s newfound talent were quite surprised to say the least. And whether they were huggers or stabbers, those children were very sorry that they went near the snowman.

So the snowman was safe from being stabbed. However, the naïve children never stopped trying to hug him or stab him. They at least knew to keep their distance, but they just wouldn’t leave him alone. The snowman was forced to use his unique self-defense mechanism more often than he liked, as the very act of breathing fire in order to protect himself was very painful. And, in fact, he he eventually melted away in the act of self-preservation. But he was never a victim of the stabber children again. They all thought he just finally found a place to live.