A sense of pride is a good thing to have. It’s healthy to have pride in your work, in your school (just ask any high school cheerleader) and in yourself.

However, often times people let their personal pride get them into trouble. This pride, which begins as a mild mannered emotion, escalates into full-scale invincibility. Students especially, it seems, think that they are above the normal limitations of human beings and that they are completely invincible.

They can outsmart the laws of nature and the laws of man to be who they want to be, as well as where they want to be, with nothing holding them back.

This can mean big trouble in a lot of different ways. Because of this whole it-could-never-happen-to-me attitude, students end up taking all kinds of risks. While these crazy risks can be very fun, and could very well be why some people even bother to come to college, these same risks are causing all kinds of problems.

People refuse to wear hats or mittens, despite the bad weather, thinking there is no possible way they could catch a cold. Minors use fake IDs to get into the bar, and then they are shocked and appalled when they get caught and have to pay the $90 fee for minor on the premises.

The troubles of invincibility-minded students can be even more serious than a few sniffles or having to cough up a few bucks to the police.

People run off and have sex, not concerning themselves with the consequences, and later have to deal with the realities of sexually transmitted diseases, perhaps an unwanted pregnancy, or maybe even AIDS. It won’t happen to me, we think. Well, it does.

I’m not going to try to pretend that I’m not included in this. I, too, buy into the invincible way of thinking. I always assume that I won’t get hurt or in trouble, and that things will go my way.

Unfortunately, my mortal and vincible existence here on earth was proved to me yet again last week on my way home from a meeting.

Here’s the scene: I was getting rather low on gas. Actually, I had been cruising around Ames on “E” all week, but in correlation with the whole invincibility theory, I hadn’t worried about it because there was absolutely no way that I would run out of gas. Preposterous!

Well … as I was driving down Lincoln Way, playing with the thought that perhaps I should start thinking about getting to a gas station, I felt a little jerk from my 1986 red Escort. Suddenly, it died. After trying to start it up again to no avail, I threw it into neutral and got out and began to push. Lucky for me I was on a bit of a hill, which gave me the slope I needed to get the car rolling.

I jumped back in and started it up. She’s alive! She’s alive! “Hooray!” I thought, “now on to the gas station!” Wrong again. Ten feet later, she stalled again, and this time there was no reviving her. I tried pushing again, but I just ended up sliding around and looking pretty much like a big moron. Yep, in fact I’d go so far as to say a really, really big moron.

Meanwhile, cars are pulling up behind me, honking loudly, and glaring at me from behind their wheels. This was where the shield of invincibility began to slip, and the waterfall of obscenities began to rush in.

Didn’t the cars understand? When someone is out of their car, it most likely isn’t going to be traveling very quickly! Hello, go around me! What’s the problem with wearing mittens in the winter? When you flip people off, they can’t even tell!

Finally I gave up pushing and trotted a block and a half down the street to the nearest gas station where I asked, with as much patience as I could muster, if I could borrow some gas.

Naturally, when I made it back to my car, half of the gallon of gas I was futilely trying to put in spilled all over my shoes, my pants, my jacket and my mittens. I guess I should just be happy that no one lit a cigarette around me, or it would have been good night, Joanne.

When I relayed the long, exasperating story to my older sister, she listened to (and smelled) me sympathetically, but then asked, “How many times will it take you to learn to keep gas in the car?” (I neglected to mention that this isn’t the first time I’ve been brought back to earth by the lack of gasoline in my vehicle.)

She obviously isn’t aware that I am usually untouched by such grievances. Only a few hours before I had been invincible.

Did I learn anything from this? Do I realize now that I’m not above human concerns? That bad things can and will happen to everyone?

Hmmmm. Not really.

Will any of us ever overcome the invincibility theory?

I doubt it. People will continue having unprotected sex and going to the bar when they’re underage. I will probably continue driving my car around on empty until I reach a ripe old age and can’t drive anymore. Or at least as long as my mittens keep smelling like gasoline.

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Joanne Roepke is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Aurora.