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“Despite my better judgment” is an interesting phrase. Its meant to imply that the person using it carefully weighed two choices in their mind and went ahead and chose the one that was doomed to failure anyway. Unfortunately its also one of those phrases that are used incorrectly more often than not.

That leaves you with people saying things like ‘To spite my better judgment I ordered a supersize Big Mac meal instead of the regular Big Mac meal’. Chances are you will be left wondering if the ‘to spite’ addition was intentional, and wether or not the person speaking understands irony. Tests for understanding irony are very simple, but they are also very obvious to anyone that does, in fact, understand irony. The last thing you need is yet another reason for a person you’re acquainted with to get offended.

I’ve spent many, many hours ranting about incorrect uses of irony, starting with Alanis Morrisette and ending with the people I work with daily. Over time I have come to have a question about usage of my own, unfortunately I have a feeling that its the set-up to someone else’s joke:
A person that acts moronic is a moron. What do we call a person that acts ironic?

Speaking of failure… against my better judgment I have been known to stop and assist motorists that are broken down at the side of a highway. I’m not sure why a breakdown elicits this response from me when most other things don’t… In fact, when I’m at home I’m a grumpy old curmudgeon that yells at the neighborhood kids to leave my dog alone. Every now and then I also have to ask the neighborhood kids to stop using my yard for drug deals. The regular guy gets a little grumpy when the kids try hound in on his customers.

When it comes down to it I guess there is something about some poor soul stuck next to a freeway. Thousands of cars will pass by and none of them will check to make sure that the driver is fine and has a cell phone or a number for a tow truck. It could be quite some time before a patrol car happens to pass by. After all, they only show up when you don’t want them to, right?

Stopping to assist fellow motorists hasn’t always turned out badly for me. Once I managed to stop and assist a guy that had no cell phone and was stranded in the middle of nowhere. It turns out he wrote articles for some regional magazine, and had gotten lost on his way to take some pictures. For the last two years I’ve been getting free copies of the magazine he writes for, and its not bad.

Other times though I end up with nothing to show for my trouble but a ruined pair of pants and a sour attitude about people. For some reason every asshole that ever sinks his car into a ditch is convinced that no matter how bad of a driver they are, or how deep the snow is, that all they need is some 200 pound guy to stand in front of his car and push while they push their accelerator all the way to the floor for two minutes straight. I keep telling myself that “Next time all I’m going to do is offer a cell phone or else drive away” but I always fall for it.

This Sunday (Mothers Day) I stopped to help a young couple and their mother. I had seen them drive by earlier, and their front wheel was wobbling back and forth very badly. It obviously had no lug nuts holding it on, and I had no idea why the person driving was continuing to move forward. Finally they pulled over, and I pulled over in front of them.

I took a look at the car and confirmed that yes, there were missing lug nuts. There was only one left on that wheel, and it actually fell off while I was standing there talking to the driver and her boyfriend.

I offer them a solution: Take one lug nut off of each of the other wheels and put it on this one. This gets the boyfriend very excited, until the driver tells him that she doesn’t have a spare tire or a jack.

Well, taking my bad decisions a step further, I offer them the use of the jack from my car, and even jack the car up for them. Immediately the boyfriend begins to kick the tire that is falling off, apparently in some misguided attempt to get it back on the car. Unfortunately this is pushing the car backwards and tilts my jack at a dangerous 45 degree angle. I request that he stop, and he insists that the car shouldn’t be moving because the driver put it in park. I try to explain that park only works on two wheels, but his eyes gloss over and he begins to smile and talk to the traffic. At this point I decide to call him Skippy.

Figuring that Skippy was going to be on his trip for a few minutes I straighten out the jack and get the car raised up off the ground. In no time at all though Skippy is back to doing something stupid, this time bear-hugging the tire, trying to get it to come off the car. The jack is again dangerously wobbling and I manage to convince him that the car would hurt if it fell on him. My third attempt doesn’t help, since the sand at the side of the road is fresh and the jack just sinks into it too easily… especially thanks to Skippy’s help with the first two attempts.

In the end it took a jackstand to support part of the car, and then a board under the jack to stabilize the car enough to get the tire off. The inside of the rim is scarred from the lug nut studs scraping and banging against it. The holes that the studs go through look oval now. Two of the lug nut studs have actually snapped off, and the remaining three have no thread left on them.

Suddenly I realize that I’ve gotten in way too deep for a trio of strangers. This isn’t just a quick tire change, its a serious safety hazard. If I touch anything else I could be in trouble. I decide I’m done and let my better judgment finally prevail.

So, my mind made up, I throw the tire under the side of the car and lower the car down onto it. This keeps it just high enough so that the rotor isn’t touching the ground and I can retrieve my stuff. Then I explain to the driver that I cant get a lug nut onto those studs, and she’ll need to call a professional… preferably not whoever it was that put that tire on last.

Its at this point that I learn that the last person to put that tire on had just replaced two lug nut studs. I suppressed a laugh, packed up my tools, said goodbye, and moved on.

“No good deed goes unpunished” is another interesting phrase.