Unintended Consequences Can Bite You In The Arse [Reader Post]

It was the late 80’s or early 90’s, I don’t remember exactly; I was at the top of my field with enough strength and testosterone to take on the world. I was working in Europe and all over North America, my hubris had not caught up with me and I thought I would live forever. It would take twenty years before I would realize my own mortality; but at this time, there was no one in the world who could stand against me, no one.

I could buy two ranches in one year, I drove the most expensive automobiles and had an office with several women to keep me pointed in the right direction; in other words, I was a complete fool and played the role to the max.

It was mid-winter and I was on the road East of Merritt headed for Calgary. I was driving an S series Mercedes and fueling up at a truck stop. A young cowboy walked up and asked if he could ride with me into Calgary.

His hair was a little too long and his clothes were nearly worn out, it wasn’t a fashion statement, it was from work on a ranch. He wore moose hide moccasins with rubber over shoes, his belt and rodeo buckle were older than he was.

In a matter of seconds, I took a measure of the boy using the same skill that I use to size up a horse, a skill has kept me alive with thousands of horses.

“Do you smoke or drink?” I asked.

“I don’t smoke, but if you want to have a drink, I’ll drink with you”, he answered with a smile.

I grinned and thought to myself, he was the real McCoy, a spitting image of myself almost twenty years earlier. “Throw your tack in the trunk, we leave in a few minutes”, I told him.

He pulled a blanket roll and a pack from an early 50’s model pick up, and after stowing it in the trunk, we hit the road for Calgary.

It was only an hour or so to Kamloops and like all cowboys, we began to talk. He was headed to Calgary to get a wife. He and his dad ranched near Alexis Creek and since a ranch generally runs smoother with a good woman, his dad had figured it was time that his son take a wife so that the two bachelors could concentrate on ranching and less on domestic chores.

It was logic at the most basic level. His dad gave him three hundred dollars and told him to find a wife and be home in two weeks for the calving season. He had heard of the Ranchman’s Bar on the Southside of Calgary and figured it was the best place to find a woman who wanted to be a rancher’s wife.

He asked what I thought of his plans. I asked if he had much experience with women: he told me that he really wasn’t all that knowledgeable about women, but he had the desire and he was strong and nimble.

I told him that he had an excellent starting position; but I had been all over the world and that I knew some things about women that might help him. This got his attention and he became very interested.

I started in on the things that women appreciate, “Women like men with new socks”.

“New socks?” he asked, with a look of disbelief.

I told him to look in my duffel bag and get the package of new socks; take out a pair and put them on and throw those old ones out the window.

Once that little session was over it was like a spring breeze had blown through the truck. He was a good sport about the situation so when we pulled into Kamloops, I took him to a western store and bought him new pair of Wrangler jeans and a couple of western shirts. He was really happy with the new clothes and offered to buy me lunch.

We had a couple of beers with lunch at the diner. Now those of you have never had a beer in Canada, let me tell you, they are considerably more potent than your American beer. None the less, my young cowboy was feeling pretty good by this time and once we were back on the road, he began to play with the electronic seat adjustment. He asked me what every knob was for and was admiring the wood trim in the console and on the dash when he noticed the Mercedes star on the hood.

“What’s that out there?” he asked.

“Oh, that’s my front sight”, I answered.

“Front sight, what do you need a front sight for?” he asked.

“You know, hippies, ner do wells, and hitch hikers”, he looked at me with a bit of skepticism and set the seat back like a barber chair and settled in for a nap.

Wouldn’t you know it, there was a hippie up ahead; sitting on his suit case strumming on his guitar. I pushed the throttle halfway to the floor and the new Mercedes roared to life with the front end raised up several inches. My young cowboy became very interested in the action at this point. I adjusted my seat back and looked through the star on the hood lining up the hippie. My cowboy was looking at the hippie and then back at me and becoming more anxious with each second. I was doing over 90 and headed straight for the hippie, who was considering the prospect of running into the trees. My cowboy’s eyes were wide open now and he was looking at me in disbelief. I now had the right wheels on the shoulder and at about 30 feet away from the hippie, I swerved hard to the left to miss the hippie when I heard a thump, thump and a cold blast of air. I turned to look at the cowboy to see what had happened as he was slamming his door shut.

He looked at me with a big grin and said, “You’re gonna have to get your sight adjusted, if’n I wouldn’t have opened the door, we would have missed that last one.”

Now, we really didn’t hit anyone at 90 mph; but it wasn’t from a lack of trying by my young friend.

Thinking you are in control of the situation, and relying on false confidence and arrogance will often leave you in deep trouble. President Obama went into the Health Care Summit with all the confidence and arrogance that he is known for and the Republicans opened the door and knocked him and his democrats right off their seats. Made to look like a fool, he has no one to blame but himself. Being unprepared and taking the other side for granted while relying on past charisma that has dissipated, set up Obama for a disaster. He had his ashes haled in front of the world and had to sit there for hours with the situation running out of control.