It's about my neighbour Sadie Rafferty.  Poor Sadie!  She was never a very careful mother, and she paid dearly for her lack of diligence.

You see, she had three small children: Niall and Henry (the twins just turned three), and Millie (the newborn).  A few weeks back she was giving young Niall a bath and had sent Henry into the nursery to keep an eye on Millie, in case she should start to cry.  Henry, being so young himself, started poking Millie about the head.  He found the soft spot on her head where the skull hadn't quite yet grown together and he poked it and accidentally pushed his finger into her head.  Millie died on the spot.  Henry was, we guessed later, so traumatised by the death of his little sister that he ran out of the house and right into the road, where he was immediately knocked down and killed by a passing lorry.

Upon hearing the commotion in the street, Sadie ran out of her house.  When she found Henry's lifeless body, she started wailing in the way only a mother in her situation can do. I ran over to her and helped her back to her house to await the ambulance.  Directly we'd got her calmed down somewhat, the full horror of that afternoon was revealed to us.  Well, I've already told you what happened to Millie.  And then there was Henry not ten minutes gone.  Two children dead all at once would have been enough to drive any mother mad, but then there was little Niall, found just moments after Millie, floating face down in the bath--drowned."

For example I have five things I like to abstain from:

1. sex with my wife
2. sex with other people's wives
3. alcohol
4. soft drugs, and
5. anger at others. 

My spoiler is 6) sex with a goat.  Thus my cards are:

1. 'Today I will allow myself to have sex with my wife.'
2. 'Today I will allow myself to have sex with other people's wives.'
3. 'Today I will allow myself to drink alcohol.'
4. 'Today I will allow myself to use soft drugs.'
5. 'Today I will allow myself to get angry with others.' and the spoiler:
6. 'Today I will allow myself to have sex with a goat.'

Now here's how they work in everyday life. You keep the cards on your dresser and each morning choose one card to carry in your pocket. That gives you 'permission' to do the thing marked on the card if you really want to do it. But you can't do any of the other things, meaning you're always abstaining from most of the things you want to abstain from.

The function of the spoiler is simple: you use it when you want to abstain from all other items on the list. For example in my case I carry the 'sex with a goat' card on days I don't want to do any of the other things on my list. Of course I'll never have sex with a goat, but carrying the card makes me feel a little as if I am still treating myself... while abstaining as I should.  I've used this system for years and have only ever had one problem with it. My card #6 fell out of my pocket once right after mass was over and the priest just happened to be standing nearby. He picked it up, read it and, embarrassed, gave it back to me! Moral: be careful who sees your Abstinence Cards!"