I try to be empathetic with these stories. We all do dumb stunts. The problem is others never seem to get the message at our expense and do their own dumb stunts. This morning brings news of a pilot who ran out of gas over Lake Michigan and is presumed dead after a failed SAR. My first knee jerk reaction was "what a dummy.' Then I remembered driving my MGA coupe in a torrential rainstorm down what had to be the last dirt road in the San Fernando Valley. I almost made it to, my 15" wire wheels and light weight defying the rising torrent. Then I ran out of gas. After the towtruck pulled out the towtruck that got stuck pulling me out, I drove to my grandmother's on .22 cents of gasoline- my sum cash on hand. Nobody was home. I found a Kimono in the garage my uncle brought back from the Korean War and changed into it. Then I walked outside and hosed the mud off my car in the rain. My aunty Ruthie Steinberg, actually our next door nieghbor of 50 + years walked out looking 'concerned.' I explained I sank my car on the old reservoir road. You want humiliation?My uncle had sunk a '37 Buick on that same road before I was born and aunt Ruthie's husband pulled him out with the Percherons he drove his produce wagon with <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />