“It is better to look ahead & prepare than to look back & regret.” Jackie Joyner-Kersee (1962 - )

The motto of the Boy Scouts is "Be prepared." Americans have taken this very much to heart. "Prepare for all eventualities." Can you really do that? We winterize our cars in order to be prepared. We change the oil, check and/or change the antifreeze, check the tires and rotate them if need be, get a tune up and change the filters. Are the brakes OK? Is the battery good or is it just "so—so" Do we get an alignment before or after the chuckhole season? Just to be safe, maybe we should do both.

The real hidden danger of all of this is that we think we have covered every base. We really delude ourselves into thinking that we have anticipated every instance of danger and we are "covered." Like car insurance we think we have full coverage. Of course it's the thing we haven't prepared for that we cause us grief. Remember the tires that we were supposed to have rotated. It's not just the tire wear that we are trying to maximize by moving the front tires to the rear, but also to made sure that the tire lug nuts are not rusted on or that the steel wheel rim is rusted unto the axle. Did the winterization include checking the spare tire? Is it low on air and rusted into it's last position or is it all set to go? Do we even know how to change a tire or will we be stuck on the side of the road due to our lack of knowledge of the procedure?

It is difficult to prepare for every circumstance in which we could have had something that we needed. If we did have everything we ever needed, our cars would be weighed down with all sort of contrivances. Remember 20/20 hindsight is great. Perhaps it is the training activity alone that gets us prepared for some type of action that we will need to take. At any rate, we have taken the first steps toward affirmative action.

K.