'Matter of Laugh or Death,' a humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

TRYING TO AVOID ACCIDENTS

There is a common theme when it comes to accidents. No matter what the sudden calamity might be, the person involved in an accident always says the same thing: the accident was a complete surprise.

You hear that familiar refrain quite often. A person will say, “I was just driving along the highway minding my own business, when all of a sudden my car hit an icy patch and the next thing I knew I was plowing through the guardrails and sailing over a cliff. It took me totally by surprise.”

Or: “I was just leaving the office at the end of the day minding my own business, when all of a sudden I tripped on the top step and the next thing I knew I was lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairwell while most of my knee cartilage and my spleen were still at the top of the stairwell. It took me totally by surprise.”

Or the most common statement of all: “I was just walking down the street minding my own business, when all of a sudden I noticed a guy looking up at the sky and the next thing I knew a flaming meteorite hit me square in the back of the head. It took me totally by surprise.”

You never hear somebody say, “You know, when I left the house this morning, I just knew that sometime during the day, when I was just minding my own business, I was destined to be hit in the head by a meteorite.” It seems, then, that the major cause of accidents these days is the fact that people do not expect them to happen.

Since I personally have no desire to sail over a cliff, leave cartilage and various internal organs at the top of a stairwell, or have my head vaporized by a wayward meteorite, I have concluded the best way to avoid an accident is to expect one to happen to me at any moment. If I am certain that a terrible accident is just around the corner, then it really will not happen.

So far my plan is working great—my car is intact, my internal organs are where they belong, and the only problem with the back of my head is the occasional bout of dandruff or unsightly hat-head.

There is only one problem: my central nervous system is getting a little stressed out—not to mention the people nearby to me—due to the fact that every fifteen seconds I scream at the top of my lungs, “Oh my God! No!!!”

Also, I’m not getting much work done at the office, and my co-workers are not exactly pleased. But you see, it’s hard to concentrate on, say, the quarterly sales report, when I am intently visualizing a flaming chunk of space rock crashing through the roof of our office building and right into my skull. And when I get tired of thinking about meteorites, I’ll occasionally dwell on the rare but not unheard of problem of fatal inkjet printer explosions.

I’m really not sure how long I can go on like this. The stress is becoming unbearable. But maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe the true cause of accidents is not that they take people by surprise. Accidents seem to occur to people who are minding their own business. That’s it! From now on instead of minding my own business, I’ll start minding everyone else’s business. That ought to keep me safe—and I’m sure my co-workers will be thrilled to have me constantly nosing into their affairs.

©2006