rhetorical situation

I found myself in a particular rhetorical situation a few days after hunting season opened. I take hunting seriously, and i love filling my freezer full of venison. Anyways, to make a long story short, here in montana hunters are required to wear 400 cubic inches of "blaze orange" material/color when in the woods. Normally, I don't have a problem following the rules that FWP make to protect the hunters and the animals themselves. But where i grew up hunting, this wasn't one of them, and for a good reason. Sure deer see black and white, so they can't see the orange, but what many people seem to forget is light reflection. Light reflects off a blaze orange vest/hat unlike any other natural thing in the woods, so deer can see it from a mile away. I went out hunting, without my blaze orange, but my hunting pack used to be orange, like 5 years ago. Its still got a orange hue, but its dirty, and worn, and would never pass for the regulatory 400 cu of the florescent stuff. Walking back to my car after a seeing a few does and loosing daylight, i passed two hunters on the dirt road. Both of which were wearing their blaze orange, and they called me out. "Wheres your orange," they said?

And there I was, caught in the sights of, what seemed like to me, two very conservative traditional montana hunters who got pissed when out-of-staters deem their hunting laws don't apply to them. I felt bad, i really did, its my responsibility to be a smart hunter and follow the rules. This was a "dangerous situation"referring to blitzers definition, people, events and objects (guns) threatened me. The constraints on my accusers made this situation even more difficult.

As i was trying to weasel my way out of my ignorance, i did not stop to think how rhetoric could help me. By the way i played dumb and acted like i didn't know i needed a certain amount of orange to hunt. And looking back at the situation, the awkwardness, sprinkles of rhetoric, this was my first rhetorical situation i've analyzed as one...if that makes sense. and no, i didn't go out and buy an orange vest after this encounter.