Muddy Buddy 2007 San Jose

The two of us are sweating, covered in mud. There’s a din surrounding us, but we can only focus on one thing. Megan looks at me and says “Are you okay?”A million thoughts run through my head. I need to react soon, or the pain is just going to intensify. I don’t want to freak out (that’s not what tough guys do), and I don’t want to make a scene, but something is telling me that I need to do something soon. I turn to my friend and I slowly say “My eyes. My f-ing eyes. I can’t see. My EYES. MY EYES!!” My voice escalates as I start to panic.”What do you want me to do? What can I do to help?” Megan jumps up to her feet and starts yelling “We need help! We need help!”

My clothes are covered in mud, my hands are covered in mud, my face is covered with mud, and, worst of all, my eyes and my hard contact lenses are covered in mud. I try to look around, my heart is racing, looking for someone or something to help me. I’m sitting on my knees now, in 4 inches of mud, fully freaking out. We’re both screaming for help. This mudpit is located at the end of the race and there has to be hundreds of people watching. We’re the only two people standing, everyone else is crawling under the race flags through this massive pit of mud. And, not one person is paying attention to us.

“Water! Water!”"Give me your shirt! How about that towel!?”

Finally, a clean man jogs over. He braves the mud pit to meet us with a bottle of water. Megan, standing above me, opens the bottle and pours it all over my face.

She looks at the man and, in a loud voice, says “What the hell is this?” He replies, “Gatorade”. She says, “Why the f- would I need gatorade in the mud pit?” For that split second, Megan thought she blinded me with gatorade. Vision gone. Forever.

The “water” feels refreshing, but surprisingly citrus-y and carbonated. My vision is coming back. I’m feeling silly for making this scene. I’m wondering if its over, if my pride is totally gone.

Another woman runs over with a big, bright and colorful beach towel undoubtedly reserved for her small tyke coming through later. I grab the towel with my muddy hands and smother it all over my face. I can see again!

I love telling this story, but I think that its told better when you can hear me with all my enthusiasm and exaggeration. The part that always brings surprise in my audience is where I tell them that Megan and I were making the biggest scene in the mud pit and not one person out of the hundreds surrounding us took action for about 1-2 minutes (which seems like forever when you have mud caught under your lenses). So I’m retelling this story because I just read a section of my book Influence: Science and Practice by Robert B.Cialdini. In this book, I believe I found the answer to my bafflement.

The chapter I am reading is called Social Proof, and in it the author recounts the Genovese Incident in which 38 neighbors passively stood by as a stalker and murderer killed Catherine Genovese in New York. As you can imagine, the press and any other talking heads tried to hypothesize why the neighbors took no action to help.; most coughing it up to apathy. The author offers up the conclusions of several psychologist that studied similar situations. They found something similar to the Tragedy of the Commons: With several potential helpers around, the personal responsibility of each individual is reduced. I believe that it is this reason it took so long for someone to react to my situation in the mudpit.

Another part of the explanation is that while people are witnessing an emergency, and they think that since there are others, they don’t need to help, they are also assessing the “emergency” part of the situation. Probably, in my situation, the emergency was not clear enough. The author suggests that, now knowing that there are some odds to overcome, you clearly articulate to one person exactly what you need. You then identify the rescuer and they, in turn, feel responsible for saving you.

Doe it make sense to you?

Related posts:

1. Signs of San Francisco
2. Are the water, weather, food and lifestyle worth it?
3. Subject to Change