Sometimes It Is Your Fault

We live in a society where nobody ever wants to take responsibility for anything they do. No matter what happens, and no matter what role they play in it, the end result is always somebody else’s fault if it turns out bad. Here’s a newsflash for you folks – sometimes it is your fault!

I saw an example of this the other day when I went to a store located in a large strip shopping center. As it so happened, I pulled in nose to nose with some type of nice looking little sports car with the top down. Being a car guy, I noticed it and admired its sharp lines as I walked past it.

When I got inside the store, the woman who owned the car (assuming it was the same car), was yelling at the manager on duty because someone had stolen her purse, which she had left on the front seat. She said she only realized she didn’t have it with her when she went to check out, and when she went out to her car, it was gone. She was berating the manager for not having better security in the parking lot. Think about this – she left the top down on her car, and she left her purse sitting on the front seat. The store manager didn’t do that. The company that owns the store didn’t do that. The checkout clerk didn’t do that. She did it. But it was everybody else’s fault but her own that it got stolen. That’s the kind of mentality I’m talking about.

I got a comment from someone who read yesterday’s blog, Oil Change Required, telling me that I was wrong when I implied that motorcycle riders need to be more careful and mentioned a couple of incidents I observed the day before. According to this person, it is always the car driver’s fault when there’s an accident that involves an automobile and a motorcycle. She mentioned that she lost a family member and a good friend in motorcycle accidents, and while I’m sorry for her loss, and I don’t know the circumstances of those tragedies, the reality is that she is wrong. Yes, there are careless car drivers, and yes, sometimes their inattention has led to fatal accidents with motorcycles. But that’s not always the case.

One of my best friends in high school was a kid named Joe Camara. There were four of us that were inseparable, and if you saw one of us, you usually saw the other three. I went into the Army after graduation and Joe joined the Navy. We met up a couple of times when we were both home on leave and were looking forward to further adventures when we were out of uniform. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. A couple of weeks before he was due for his discharge, Joe was riding a motorcycle at a high rate of speed, lost control, and hit a tree. He was killed instantly. Was that the tree’s fault? I still remember my friend with love, and I still miss him. But I don’t think we should be cutting down every tree in the world to keep the same thing from happening to someone else.

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of Big Lake Blizzard, the fourth book in my Big Lake mystery series.  To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening. Note: Due to high the shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – Remember when we had to smack the TV because the channel wasn’t coming in clearly? I feel that way about far too many people.