Same here. I was surprised to find out a few years ago that ‘veteran’ was apparently defined differently by most people than I thought. I thought veteran meant specifically a soldier who’d been involved in war, but most people defined it as anyone who’d served in the military, period.
I do indeed count as a veteran anybody who served in the military. The question was, as I understood it, how we define a combat veteran.
I was one of the 3% (2 people, I think, given the weird rounding) who chose “Falling.”
I slipped on a patch of ice on my front walk while carrying a heavy box and went down hard.
On my way to the concrete - and it’s amazing the clarity of thought I experienced in that split-second - I was absolutely certain that I was about to whack the back of my head on the front stoop and die of a basal skull fracture.
I estimate that I missed hitting the stoop by less than an inch. Was sore for a few days, but didn’t break anything.
In my 20s I was a strong swimmer. Lifeguard certification, former swim team. Like most people who drown, I overestimated by abilities. I tried to take my nephew out to a swim platform on Lake Washington. He was about 7 and not a swimmer. I put him on my back and we headed out. About 20 feet from safety I realized I really couldn’t make it much further. He was dead weight. I got within 2 feet and sank below the surface, expecting we would both die. Apparently I still had some forward momentum and came across the ladder that extended about five feet below the surface. Although I couldn’t stay above the waterline by swimming, I could grab the ladder and pull us up.
Radiolab had an episode Why A Brush With Death Triggers The Slow-Mo Effect.
Those download courses all sound very interesting. Hook me up with the crochet one. I’m a natural builder. I want to create things.
(ETA: Oh, wait, I get the reference! Demolition Man! You sly dog.)
If you make another program that teaches me how to play the piano, I’ll buy that one for $300, too.
The slo-mo effect and the flash of static images effect? I can remember a beach picnic when I was in high school. As one of the kids was leaving he met a drunk guy who slashed his face with a big knife. He (the kid) came back to our bonfire holding his face with blood dripping like crazy. One of the guys took me and another girl and locked us in his car and went back to help. Fortunately, one of the guys was an eagle scout who remembered his first aid. But I remembered it all as a series of images, like photos.
Crochet is SUPER easy. My sister showed me how to make a granny square which is only chain stitch and double crochet. From that I could use almost any crochet pattern to make something. In fact, I used to get these Japanese crochet books, and the diagrams were enough for me to follow the pattern without needing to know any Japanese.
But I’m already familiar with the vowel shift! Teach me conversational Japanese instead!
Oh, shit, if I could use this invention to learn foreign languages, I would learn as many as I could afford to. Starting with Spanish and French, and then probably Mandarin. I’d be able to communicate with about 100% of the people I meet on a day-to-day basis in meatspace.
That’s why I didn’t pick that one either. But learning other languages, understanding how cryptocurrency works, those are very attractive to me. I have no clue how cryptocurrency works so I picked that one.
The coming week’s episode of Nova on PBS is on crypto, so I’m definitely watching. I don’t know nothing, but I also don’t know much.
Different PBS stations have different schedules, I believe, because I just watched that episode last week. It was quite interesting. Actually, that’s the main reason I didn’t pick that option in the poll; I had just seen that Nova episode so I felt like I already knew enough about crypto.
As to almost dying… some years ago I was caught in a rip tide off the North Carolina coast while swimming with my two young sons. I towed them parallel to, and then into, the shore, as advised. I tried to sound lighthearted in encouraging them along, but I got really scared as I became more and more tired, fighting the current. I’m convinced we all came ‘way too close to drowning that day.
Regarding bagels, when we were dating, we would get either a plain or cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese and strawberry jam. This remains one of my favorite bagel toppings.
However. If there’s no jam, or it someone else prepping the bagel, I prefer a kitchen floor bagel (I swear I’ve seen it sold as such), otherwise known as an “everything” bagel.
This year we stopped in Eureka, and I got my first taste of Slug Slime. So cream cheese and Slug Slime are now my favorite bagel topping. So much so, I even brought a bottle home.
I would prefer my bagels with cream cheese and lox, only I can’t afford the lox.
I also like bagels with barbecued chicken; or occasionally other sorts of sandwichy fillings. Peanut butter would be quite far down the list, though.
(IMO cinnamon raisin bagels aren’t actually bagels. Opinions will obviously vary.)
I consider a bagel sandwich to be a completely different category.
I’ve never been a fan of everything bagels. My favorite is poppyseed. I used to love going to Zucky’s in Santa Monica. They served them with butter, cream cheese, and jam. Yum. Sadly, Zucky’s is long gone.
Everything bagel is my favorite.
My ‘other’ bagel topping is bacon - on top of the cream cheese, of course.
I’ve never understood the popularity of lox. You could get the same flavor by adding a tablespoon of salt to your cream cheese. YMMV 
You’ve had bad lox, to then. It should mostly taste of salmon.
My favorite topping is lox and cream cheese. I also like just cream cheese or just butter. I’ve never tried bacon, but expect it’s good too.