MichaelM said:
Let's turn his around:
Imagine then that YOU'RE carrying a mobile phone. Your wife is at work and will not be home for another 40 min or so. You're about 3 miles from home in total, and about 1 mile from the road.
What would you do?
Difficult to say precisely from the warmth of an office chair but, thinking back on this piece you wrote earlier...
MichaelM said:
Wife comes home from work, no me, and more importantly no dogs. by 21;00 she's getting worried. She finally set's off with a friend to try and find find me and the dogs somwhere in vicinity of the golf course.
They found me at around 22:30 about 50 yards from the road, I'd been crawling in the snow towards for 3 hours by now.
She's most pissed off that our old boy has been out in the cold (thermometer in car showed -7) for 4 hours or so without his coat on - and it's all my fault !!! If he shows signs of stiffness in the morning then I'm really in for it!
My guess (hope!) is that she's not really pissed off that your old boy has been out for so long** but she was worried silly not knowing where you were and knowing you had history of knee problems.
If nothing else, if you had a phone, you could do exactly the same as you did but phone the missus to tell her you'd be a little late, saving the stress. She might have decided to go looking for you with a torch, thermos, pair of sticks and a warm coat, or she could have just relaxed to watching East Enders knowing that you were still alive but would be a little late.
I call the wife when I'm running late, to tell her that I am fine and that I don't need help. That way, I don't get the grief when I do turn up as she hasn't been stressing but I've still managed to get myself off the mountain (or back from Tescos, which is more likely in my case).
As an example, a few months ago, I was out on the bike just taking a ride along the river. I stopped for a coffee so, at the point I should have been home, I just dropped her a text saying where I was with an updated ETA. A few minutes later, two policemen knocked on the door, which was a significant shock but she knew that it wasn't about me.
I have never (touches wood) had to use my phone to request assistance but I reckon use it once a week to reduce stress at the other end. Calling doesn't have to be a call for help.
**Make your own punch line!
