I've been thinking about an old line of wisdom: For want of a nail, a horseshoe was lost, for want of a shoe a horse was lost, for want of a horse a rider was lost, etc., etc. The whole thing ends up with an entire war being lost because one horse was missing a nail in its shoe.
The moral, of course, is that one little slip in preparation can change the course of history. But I don't need to use the horse-and-nail story to make the point. I have my own story. It's called: "Because Jerry took an extra two minutes to listen to someone compliment him, he and his wife almost spent a chilly night sleeping in their car on the desert."It goes like this:
My wife and I had tickets to the Shakespeare festival in Cedar City. And since Cedar in summer is more crowded than Bethlehem at tax time, we had to reserve a room in Beaver. I was told if I didn't show at the motel by 6 p.m., I could kiss my key goodbye. I saw a picture in my mind of me kissing this key and throwing it into a great abyss. I agreed to be there on time.
When we left, I gave us an extra hour and a half drive time. We were covered.
After a quick stop in Salt Lake City - which wasn't as quick as I hoped - we were on our way out the door of the Deseret News when Bill Goodfellow, my colleague at the paper, called. He wanted to tell me how much he'd enjoyed one of my columns. I checked the clock and saw I had an hour to spare. So we talked about what a fine column it was for a while, then we talked some more about how good it was. When Bill hung up, I figured we still had an extra 45 minutes to burn.
Then it dawned on me.
I'd miscalculated the drive. I'd figured the driving time from Salt Lake City to Beaver, not from Brigham City to Beaver.
We were going to be late.
We hit I-15 flying south like a migrating F-14. About Millard County I knew we weren't going to make it. We wheeled into a convenience store and I asked the clerk if he had a phone book that included Beaver numbers. He said "No." He must have learned to use the phone by correspondence course, however, because I later learned he was holding a phone book of Beaver phone numbers even as he spoke.
So I hopped outside to the pay phone. Someone was on it. I tapped my foot, I hummed a little tune, I looked at my bare wrist. Finally, the guy took off. I phoned directory assistance. They didn't have a number for the Paradise Inn in Beaver. (What?) But they did have a number for the Paice Inn in Beaver.
I got the Paice number and called Paice to ask for the number of Paradise. The Paice line was busy. I waited. Busy. I waited. Busy.
Finally, I got through. Paice gave me the Paradise number.
I called.
No answer.
I called again.
A timid voice told me if I'd phoned two minutes earlier, the clerk could have helped me. As it was, I was now talking to nobody in particular. I remembered the extra time I'd taken to listen to Bill tell me how fine a column I'd written.
I wasn't feeling so good about the column at the moment.
My wife and I whipped down I-15 like whippets. At 6:05 we found another phone. I called, five minutes after zero-hour (those compliments came to mind again). This time, I did get the clerk. She was in the process (get this) of assigning our room to someone else. But if we hurried, she said, she'd hold it.
We hurried. And were able to kiss our motel key hello.
For want of a little humility, a motel room was almost lost.
I learned a lesson. Now, if I can just remember it for more than two days, I'll be a wiser man in the future.