Mercy Rule

Do any of you have a "Mercy Rule?"

You plan and plan for a trip. You look forward to getting out. Yourself and possibly friends have taken time off work to indulge in some get away time. You pack and repack, things are now just perfect. Maybe your in your vehicle traveling to your destination jump off, and it happens.

Nasty, nasty inclement weather strikes. Seems the weatherman got this one wrong, really wrong.

Do you continue with your plans and allow Mother Nature the pleasure of "toughening" you.

Another lesson in misery? After all, we have the highest tech equipment ever enjoyed in our history. Yet, is it really good enough to out wit extreme storms?

I suppose to some the answer is "yes" regardless. In my younger years I did just that many times, foolishly I might add. I recall one time in Idaho, I had finished an evening shift at the hospital and was aching to get out. We had wind driven snow that day which had let up to high winds and a wicked temperature drop. -45°F with a wind chill of -65°F. A foolish, foolish time to go camping, I went anyway. Drove as far up the mountain as I could, got out walked into the forest a ways and set up camp. What a challenge it was too stay warm and to keep my equipment from breaking in those temps.

This would have been a great outing if I had sense enough to invoke the "Mercy Rule" and stayed home to enjoy the warmth and better food found in my fridge and simply dreamt of being out there.

In a way I'm glad (because I hadn't died) that I had had this experience. But really, how many lessons do we have to learn from Mother Nature to be enough?

Isn't it better to sometimes call off the event, find a bar and grill, sit with our friends holding a cold beer and eating a steak, talking the night away?

Mercy Rule...Do you have such an animal packed in your backpack? Have you or do you use it? When? Why? Is this just something that comes with age/wisdom? (That is an unfair way of putting it because some of you come out of the womb with more wisdom than some of us with plenty of years packed under our belts.) What does it take for you to invoke your rule?

 

The older I get the wiser I become. My mercy rule is, if the fish ain't biting I ain't going