It was a late afternoon as I headed my green Craftsman riding mower west into the sun.

It was difficult to see, of course, as bright as it was but I had made that turn hundreds of times before.

This time, however, I was greeted with a sharp pain-the kind of pain that comes when a briar rakes across your face when traveling at a blistering .2 miles per hour. Slow motion pain.

A thorn, I would find, imbedded into my lip and blood oozed from the tip of my nose.

Stupid briar.

Stupid, stupid briar.

I don't know if you will admit to making the same mistake twice, so I'll go first. Yes, I'm an offender. Just ask those who edit my copy.

You would think we would learn from mistakes because that's what we're supposed to do-having been taught that all of our lives. And though I'm certain we assimilate our major errors as learning lessons, the minor ones seem to waft away like the smoke from a match. It's there, you can see it when it's close to the fire, and then gone-out of sight, and soon out of mind, too.

It's why people in bad relationships tend to be attracted to the same type of person the next time around.

Why we knew the pothole was there, but drove through it anyway.

And why you open the refrigerator again and again when you know there's nothing there.

All of which brings me back to the lawnmower. The lip wasn't too bad, but I was left with a rather large scratch at the end of my nose once the bleeding had stopped. There's not much you can do about a scratch on the end of a nose-a bandage would, well, look rather silly, plus it would be difficult to attach and annoying to boot.

So I lived with the red mark and watched as it began to heal.

It would be nice if this were the end of the tale. But, well, I wouldn't have a column about doubling up on mistakes if it were. A week or so after the incident, I was again mowing the lawn, again riding into the fading sun and again felt this rip of pain.

I had hit the briar that, again, whacked my face and again left a nice scratch across the end of my nose.

Who knew “again” could be such a painful word?

And, yes, I had to leave the mowing to stop the bleeding.

Yes, yes, I should have chopped the weed down when it happened the first time. If I had, it wouldn't have been a 2X painful lesson nor a column.

I hope my nose has healed again (I've got to stop it with that word) by the time you read this, but as of now-the morning after-two people have already told me it looks like a cat has taken hold of it.

It's a purrfectly reasonable assumption (though I'm not a cat person) given the way it looked. But, no, this was a visible manifestation of what can happen when one ignores those pesky life lessons.

Yes, I got the point the second time and I've assured it won't be the same briar that rakes across my face-fading sun or not-the next time.

Consider that taken care of.

Lesson learned, albeit painfully late.

Just hope it doesn't leave a scar.