Once upon a time, a man and woman went upstairs to bed. Their children had been asleep for some time. A horrible thunderstorm was raging outside, but they felt comfortable and warm in their room.  Suddenly, the front doorbell rang.  The wife said to the husband - "Well, aren't you going to get up and go answer the door?" "At this hour???!!!!  With that storm raging?"  "Well, yes, honey.  It could be somebody out in this horrible storm with car trouble." 

Well, he got up and got his robe and went downstairs - not because he wanted to do it, of course.  He turned on the lights and opened the front door.  Nobody there.  He shook his head, turned off the lights and trudged back upstairs to his room.  "Nobody there," he grouched and climbed back into his bed after disrobing.  He snuggled up close to his wife and was close to falling off to sleep when - yes, you guessed it.  The doorbell rang.  No, he didn't want to go again to find nobody there.  But - his wife - she had a soft heart, so he retraced all his actions and steps again and sure enough - opened the door to nobody there.  But this time, he could hear a tiny voice pleading, "Help me.  Help me.  Oh, please, please, help me."  He grabbed his coat, an umbrella and put on some boots.  He trudged outside as lightening flashed and thunder boomed. 

He could hear the distress calls but the thunder made it hard to be able to tell where they were coming from.  So, he walked here and he walked there in the pouring rain, the resulting mud, the claps of thunder and the flashes of lightening.  He was soaking wet when he finally was able to trace the sound coming from deep in his large backyard.  He entered the yard unable to see - it was so dark.  He kept walking towards the voice in the muck - hoping he wouldn't be struck by lightening on the way or hurt by whomever was calling for help.  Finally, he almost reached the furthest corner of the back yard when a large lightening flash exposed the swing set belonging to his children.  He saw a figure on the swing.  He moved closer until he was almost face to face with what he discovered was a man who he could tell was very drunk.   The man looked up at him and sadly said, "Oh, hello.  Could you give me a push?"  The End.

The moral of the story for me:  Don't put myself at risk to do for others what they can do for themselves no matter how pitiful they might sound or how hard the storm is blowing.