Bacon Scrapins – “It’s Just Common Sense!”

Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They’re tasty, but the nutrition needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin.

As we add years onto our journey, and add wealth into our portfolio, there seems to be an increased tendency to assume that all that experience we’ve accumulated has also given us increased knowledge and tempered judgement.

When another choice or decision comes along, we draw upon previous experiences, make a quick judgement, and act. Sometimes, we get so good at this process that we do things almost automatically – it’s just common sense to do it that way!

Maybe? Let me share some examples of how I, and probably you too, have come across
some common-sense decisions.

I was sitting in my car, window down, outside the drive-in fruit and vegetable spot. A van pulled into an empty slot to my left. Their passenger window was also down. The passenger tossed a burning cigarette onto the ground between us. Just then, a vacant spot opened up in the lane ahead, and they pulled forward into the newly opened spot – closer to the store. They left the burning butt on the ground beside me so that I could enjoy their cigarette smoke, filling my car, for the next several minutes. It made perfect sense – to her – to toss the butt out the window before entering the store.

My grandson and I were heading across the parking lot toward the opening in the woods and to the walking path. He stopped, jumped up and down, and said, “Grandpa! I’ve got gum stuck to my foot! Get it off, please!” He’s a well-mannered kid, and the please was no surprise. I had to carry him to the side of the lot, find a discarded stick, and scrape most of the gooey mess off his shoe. It made perfect common sense to someone that the gum’s flavour was gone, so just spit it out.

I took the long way into town via the main highway. I was in the left lane getting ready to make the left-hand turn at the red lights up ahead. Approaching the turn lane, the guy 5 feet ahead of me in the outside, right-hand lane, turned on his flasher at the exact same time as he made a sudden shift across into my lane. My car hood dipped dramatically as I jammed the brakes. It made perfect common sense to him to turn on his flashers to change lanes.

A developer from the “biggest” city bought some rural land just outside a “bigger” city, planning to build a mixed complex of single homes big enough for 4 people, some “low-rise” 4-storey townhouses, and a row of six, 6-storey “mid-rise” apartments. He knew that the region had a by-law restricting buildings to 3-storeys, and that they had fire equipment that could only reach 3-storeys high. But he knew that the “biggest” government was pushing the “smaller” governments for increased heights and densities, and that the rural area might be attracted by a potentially increased tax base. So, it made perfect common sense, that when he submitted his zoning change application, to include an offer to buy them a firetruck, that could reach 6-storeys in the air.

We were comparing prices of various nutrition bars at the Big C store in the city. They had a box of 36 ‘Nurtured Hillside’ bars, 3 different flavours (two of which we never eat, leaving 24 bars sitting in the box) for $3 off. Just $10.99, or 0.8¢ per gram, or just 2.6¢ per gram for the 12 we would eat. Beside that stack, they had their “store brand” bars, in a box of 24, 4 grams larger each bar, with 3 different nuts. But they were all chocolate (which is the topping flavour we prefer). $17.99, or 1.8¢ per gram. Financially, it made perfect common sense to buy the discounted “Nurtured Hillside” box, didn’t it?

Making choices, especially when it involves mathematics, is hard. That’s why we usually use common sense to make life easier in the short term, and without much consideration to the future implications.

Maybe common sense can be ‘much common’, but ‘little sense’?

NOTE: The characters and names in this Bacon Scrapins tale are fictional.

You may send appropriate email comments to the writer at thisiswilmot@gmail.com