Sometimes it seems that conditions are just perfect. Beautiful day, sunny and warm, ideal temperature. Great job, fun people with whom to work, good pay. Wonderful family, lots of love, mutual respect. Sometime, conditions are just perfect. And, sometimes, they are just perfect for disaster.

Okay, disaster is a great exaggeration, unless, of course, it’s your noggin that just hit the frozen ground or your car that just slid into the ditch. Neither of those, exactly, happened to me yesterday, but it wasn’t for lack of opportunity. We had a wet snow, well packed in the driveway and the temperature was just a couple of degrees above freezing. So, on top of the packed snow, we had a micro-layer of melt. I suspect the coefficient of friction was somewhere in the realm of graphite powder on polished metal. In other words, it was slick.

As I was turning the four-wheel drive pickup truck around, it just started sliding sideways down the slope toward the east pasture. No big deal, just a few feet and then I hit snow that wasn’t packed and resumed progress toward my original destination. A bit later, while walking very slowly and deliberately down the drive toward the barn, my right foot slid right out from under me. Since I was already in a half-crouched position, I managed to catch myself with one hand into the snow. So, there was no thunking of the cranium, which is usually a good thing to not thunk.

I knew it was really slick, I was wearing good boots with good traction and walking carefully, but I still fell. On the way back, I chose to walk through the six inches of snow rather than on the driveway.

There are simply situations in life when being careful is not enough; we need to choose a safer route. Particularly when something more valuable than our body is at stake.

H. Arnett
2/28/13