I died recently.
Well, OK, I'm still here typing this (with one finger to keep my arthritis going), but I almost coulda died. I'll tell you all about it. Catastrophe loves an audience.
I'm up early - not your kinda early maybe, but still … It's quiet at 7:00 am and after I swing my arms around and jump up and down a few times in imitation of a geriatric exercise routine I can even face the computer screen. I zip through deleting scads of "Please send us money" letters from political parties and charities, news of disasters from various parts of the world and all kinds of scam letters that just ask how I am and want me to "stay in touch". Then I nearly died in an innocent quest for coffee.
You know the feeling. After looking at a computer screen for a bit, you need consolation. Mine is coffee. At that hour of the morning anyhow, and so I headed for the kitchen.
I didn't even see the pool of water in the hallway and I did a classic pratfall that would have taken an Oscar for Chaplin. One minute I'm striding; the next, I'm down. The water wasn't there half an hour before, and later reconnaisance showed that the dishwasher that had been ailing recently, had taken that particular morning to disgorge a lot of water onto the floor - quietly, I might add.
I could see it was the diswasher that was the culprit while I was on the floor wondering if I'd broken anything and noticing that I was getting very wet. I'd had an accident. Classic accident. Now lemme play pedagogue a bit. I have the time while the dryer's doing its thing.
An accident is a suddenl and rapidly evolving, unforseen set of circumstances resulting in an undesired outcome. That was me and the water on lino - sudden - unforseen - circumstance of gravity - definitely unpleasant. Now for the outcome.
I didn't die of course, and you'll forgive my penchant for melodrama. But others have. I've seen a few death reports that say that someone fell and struck their head and died. I just got wet. And hurt; don't forget the pain.
The area of concern for those who have digested my earlier posts on anatomical referents https://www.derekpeach.com/blog/body-parts-1 was the outer bumnal. Some involvement of the upper stridus-alongus and hoopus-rotator was also noted. I didn't like any of it and I was the subject of concern. And I'm still concerned.
The bruise is developing nicely. Beverly's sympathy is dissipating with every instance of my displaying the bruised area, and she completely rejects my appeals to her maternal or spousal instincts to "kiss it better". I am left to philosophy and recall.
See, this business of "unforseen" and "rapidly evolving" calls for honest introspection. I'd always visualized myself in the place of those unfortunates who had died in a fall and seen my response as some superior athletic acrobatic display whereby I saved my life and stood to receive the accolades of onlookers. Doesn't happen that way in real life.
Guys drown when they go fishing, and many of their bodies have the fly undone. They'd gone to pee over the stern and their weight combined with that of the outboard motor tipped the boat and slid them under. The life preserver was still tied to the seat.
And remember the definition given to us by a local tour driver as we were passed by a motorcyclist on a blind curve on a mountain road outside of Naples. "We call these people "organ donors". Fantasies of reaction times do not accord with the laws of physics. Back to my damaged bumnal.
The suggested response to bruised flesh is the application of cold, and I know that's supposed to be cold as in freezer bag or ice in cloth sac applied to injured part rather than ice cubes applied to glass of scotch. It works, but it takes time. At my age, it seems to take more time than it used to. I complain to doctors at my local clinic, but they all tell me it's in my head - I think I'm 25 when I'm actually 84. I use a lot of ice these days in both applications.
So, now I'm alive and merely annoyed and I have a dishwasher that's out to get me. Call it paranoia if you will, but I say that is a perfectly reasonable, even valuable, response. Entropy is the tendency of everything to go downhill, and that's everything from dishwashers to stars in the galaxy. Watch out. The physical universe really is out to get you.
You think that bag of groceries will stay balanced on the seat while you drive home? Ha!
You know you're only going for a short walk to the post office, so why take an umbrella?
Of course you can pour the sugar, flour, milk from the bulk container into the small household one without a funnel, just as easy as emptying the vacuum cleaner cannister into a gargage bag in the kitchen.
This is all getting too autobiographical. Let's go somewhere else. Like my bumnal.
I got a sharp rebuke from physics. Wet floor, smooth-soled slippers, inattention, all combined to dump me on the floor and merely give me a sore bottom. I'm not going to suddenly turn into some Inspector Clouseau from The Pink Panther (gotta re-watch that one) who is always training himself to expect the unexpected, but I will slow down a bit and watch where I'm going. I might even enjoy my coffee more.
You do too.