Christie Mastric

A while back, a former colleague and I talked about a possible book that would be titled “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.” It was to be about situations than went awry.

That book never materialized. However, I might want to work on a book called “Are You Sure You Want to Do This?”

The book would be one cautionary tale after another.

For example, in college, I wanted to cook some mini-egg rolls, or a similar type of snack. However, I didn’t have a pan, so I decided to put them on a plastic — yes, plastic — ice cube tray and stuck them in the oven.

It didn’t go well.

Another idea gone bad was trying to open a tube of Super Glue in my mouth, with the wrong end pointed inside. I’m not sure how I survived that one, but my molars didn’t stick together since there was no way I was biting down after that wrong move.

One time I craved a bubble bath, but was out of the proper soapy liquid. So, I tried to adapt by filling a water-filled bathtub with Spic and Span. I wouldn’t say it was like bathing in sulfuric acid, but I would have been better off waiting to buy a bottle of Mr. Bubble. Fortunately, all my skin layers were intact after that “bath.”

Sometimes you know deep down that you shouldn’t try something, but either you hope bad things don’t have happen after you do, or if they do, you’ll survive them with at least some newfound knowledge — usually what doesn’t work instead of what does work.

Repercussions from misplanned events can be minor. I visited a local cemetery a few years ago with my dogs, with a deep-down gut feeling that I shouldn’t bring canines to a cemetery. They might leave lovely parting gifts that don’t belong in between the markers.

It turned out that dogs aren’t allowed in the cemetery after all, so I haven’t brought any dogs back since the initial misdeed.

My husband and I like to watch birds on a two-track along the Dead River in the city limits. I should warn you that in winter, it’s not really passable via vehicle. In fact, summer might be the only surefire travel season. Anyway, during one spring, I got a hankering to prematurely drive down the road, even though Dave warned me against that since there still was a lot of snow in the ditches.

Unfortunately, I didn’t heed his warning and followed my hankering, resulting in my car being stuck. I had to wait for a tow truck driver who had to come from way out of town, and eventually my car became unstuck, although I think some metal part under the car got bent a bit.

And I never saw a single bird.

In another escapade, I caught myself before I really got in a bind.

I was on an assignment at Marquette Mountain Resort when, for a reason I can’t specifically recall, I started to drive up a hill on a snowy narrow road. It was slick, but I kept going until I realized my car had its vertical limitations and I was at risk of sliding back down, or worse, tumbling off the hill onto some trees.

I would have felt very silly had I called for help because my car might have been suspended between two trees. It would have made for a good visual but a humiliating experience for me.

So, in one of my best lifetime situational judgments, I decided to slowly travel back down the hill, backwards as I recall. I must say, it was a masterful driving maneuver.

I was never that grateful to get back on M-553 in snowy weather.

With age comes wisdom, or at least a little bit of justifiable paranoia. So far, I’ve gathered a few nuggets of knowledge:

≤ If I want a bubble bath, I make sure I have Mr. Bubble or a bath bomb handy.

≤ If I want to drive up North Third Street when it’s really icy, I don’t.

≤ I don’t use spray paint when trying to spiff up trim on a window.

≤ I don’t stand on my snowshoe wooden table, especially on a seam.

≤ I don’t stick my fingers into my pug’s food dish when she’s eating.

≤ I wash my earbuds almost after every use because I tend to jam them too far into my ear and I want to keep my cochleas inside where they belong.

I’m sure that as I live my daily life, I will absorb more things to avoid or reconsider, and continue to ask myself, “Are you sure you want to do this?”.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Christie Mastric is a staff writer at The Mining Journal. Contact her at cbleck@miningjournal.net.