A Thousand Ways to Go

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Sadly I read a story about a man who jumped out of an airplane and somehow lost his chute on the way down -the results weren't good.

There is the even sadder story of the 17-year-old kid who went looking for his hat and was wiped out by a roller coaster. My kids are never going to be able to walk out of Mom's sight lines at Six Flags.

Sixteen people choked to death on rubber bands last year. Can you imagine those wakes? He choked on what? Why the hell was he chewing a rubber band?

I'm always fascinated with the crazy end to a life. I suppose its because I'm a fairly cautious person and wouldn't think of being even a little reckless. When I drive I scan the surrounding areas for signs of danger. I gave up snowmobiling because I was always looking for the pond that was going to trap me, or the electric fence that would cut my jugular.

Yet I nearly bought it myself in a bizarre manner on the day when the Bills played in their last Super Bowl. I was having trouble sleeping that morning and wanted to get a jump on the big day. I went to my car in the parking lot and found that it was stuck in its spot due to icy conditions (Buffalo - go figure).

I started the car and put it in neutral and began pushing on it so that it could break free of the ice. Unfortunately there was a car in the lot even with mine. My car started rolling back, pinching - no crushing me - between my car and the parked car. The door was squeezing me to the point of suffocation, but just before I lost all of my air and did my impression of a juice box, the car broke free of the ice, rolled down the driveway and slammed into the house behind me. I hit the ground and crawled to the car which had hammered the house.

I got in the car, rolled down the window, counted every rib, and put it into drive. I scanned the area to be sure that no one saw my supreme act of stupidity and then I started laughing.

I laughed all the way until the game started - when Dallas rolled off about thirty unanswered points, I wished that I'd be under the car.

Some people want to go out in a blaze of glory - my father always said that wants to live to 98 and get arrested for rape. Not sure about all of that, but it does pay to be cautious.

I'm scanning online for people who blow off their limbs with fireworks - hope it doesn't happen this year.

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