The longer I live, the more I think everything is a cautionary tale. Or to be more specific, life is a cautionary tale. Make that other people’s lives are cautionary tales. The problem is, most of us don’t pay attention to other people’s cautionary tales since for some reason, we’re hard wired to believe nothing bad can happen to us. Then when something not so wonderful does happen, we refuse to believe it until we’re absolutely forced to. Denial can be an amazingly strong — and comforting — emotion.
I’m thinking about cautionary tales after my husband Mark told me about seeing a couple in a parking lot with a dead battery and their jumper cables safely tucked away in the trunk of their car. Unfortunately, the trunk could only be opened with a fob that also had a dead battery. After going into the store for fresh batteries for the fob, the trunk opened and the cables were retrieved.
“That’s a cautionary tale,” Mark said. “Always keep your starter cables in the back seat.” And try to arrange it so you’re within walking distance of a store that sells batteries, I might add.
However, those aren’t the lessons I took away from that particular scenario. What I learned is that it would be in our best interests to figure out a way to time travel back to the days when car doors and trunks opened with keys that never required batteries.
Then there are the cautionary tales that can only be appreciated in hindsight. Well, I suppose all cautionary tales are crystal clear in hindsight. Such as how your mom warned you that one day you’d regret sunbathing with only baby oil and iodine between you and the solar rays, and you not only ignored her wise counsel but also laughed because what did she know anyway?
Just about everything our parents warned us about qualified as cautionary tales, although we interpreted them as plain old nagging. Such as the cautionary tale about the neighbor’s son who opted out of college to work at a gas station. What, our parents asked, was going to become of him? Nothing good was the gloomy prediction. Well, that neighbor’s son now owns several gas stations along with a luxurious vacation cottage up north, so there was one cautionary tale that went south.
Cautionary tales often come with larger-than-life storylines, like the horror stories about taking a nighttime cruise in the country and running out of gas only to be chopped into little pieces by a deranged serial killer. The lesson? Stay home on Saturday nights.
Some cautionary tales have less gruesome, but more embarrassing consequences. Such as the many incidences of “drunk Facebooking” which, thankfully, doesn’t seem to be as prevalent as it once was so maybe some people do learn from others’ mistakes. Really, drunk anything — texting, emailing, calling — should be a signal that it’s time to cut back on the chardonnay. If you wake up and your first thought is, “Did I really send that text or was I dreaming? I hope I was dreaming!” maybe you should switch to Ovaltine before bed.
Of course, the problem with cautionary tales is that someone out there had to make a public booboo in the first place for the rest of us to be able to shake our heads. Interestingly, politicians and celebrities never seem to learn from mistakes, theirs or anyone else’s. But politicians and celebrities usually come equipped with Teflon coatings along with the sure knowledge that if they wait a day, or an hour, or 20 minutes, another high level faux pas will pop up and theirs will be forgotten.
I suppose the best thing that can be said about cautionary tales is to try and pay attention to ones that hit close to home. Keep your battery cables in your back seat, avoid Facebook while imbibing, and dump the baby oil and iodine for decent sunscreen. Oh, and always listen to other people when they share their latest cautionary tale. You will undoubtedly learn something.