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Phrase: In dire straits
When someone describes your situation as being in dire straits, you should know you are in deep trouble.
People caught with illegal drugs in Japan instantly find themselves in dire straits.
When you are in dire straits, you are in a very bad or difficult situation, and the outcome does not look good.
Every winter, people who take medicine regularly find themselves in dire straits in Japan because they are stuck on the highway.
It’s common for highways to become blocked for days and days during extremely heavy snowfalls in northern Japan.
If you travel without a few days’ worth of medication in your pocket, you can quickly find yourself in dire straits.
Cancer patients, those on blood thinners or transplant recipients who suddenly have to go without their medications because they left them at home may be endangering their lives.
When we are young, we often fail to plan and deal with life as it happens.
As we age, we need to take prescription medications for one ailment or another.
Make it a habit to carry around enough doses for a few days and a complete list of your medications.
If you are stuck in a snowstorm or can’t get back home due to some other natural disaster such as a typhoon or earthquake, you won’t find yourself in dire straits wishing you had hoped for the best but planned for the worst.
The worst doesn’t happen every day, but it does happen when you are least prepared for it.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 69.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.