Near Misses

In My Humble Opinion
21

Oh good lord, I know I occasionally look back at my life or am reminded of something, and I’m sure I’ve worked my way through at least a dozen guardian angels. They MUST get hazard pay, and probably early retirement, after having kept my ass out of the trouble it should have been in, lol!

Something similar to the OP: About a year ago I decided I needed a new purse. I’m not a real girly-girl, and for me a purse is a necessity, 'cause I hate crap in my pockets. In the winter, I am happy to use my coat/jacket pockets to carry whatever, but I’m near Ocotillo (Hi, Trinopus! I’m gonna have to check out those petraglyphs, they sound neat!) and it’s rarely coat weather.

Anyway, I typically own one purse at a time, until it wears out, then I get a new one. I’d been working around and with rather flashy, dressy women, and thought maybe I’d get a RED purse instead of a black one. Just something pretty for a change. I looked around, and hesitated, and ended up getting just a very boring black one, as usual.

Fast forward two weeks, when I am at Walmart, in the parking lot. I had a lot of stuff, packed it all out of the cart, into the car, shoved the cart up onto the sidewalk 'cause I didn’t want to walk all the way to the cart return, and I drive home, a half hour away. Get into the driveway, and realize that, yep, my purse was still in that cart.

Now, if it’d been a RED purse, bright and shiny and hanging out in the middle of a Walmart parking lot unattended, how long do you think it would have lasted? :smiley: As it was, I got back there and it was still right there in the kiddy seat. I just KNOW if it’d been a bright colour, it’d have been GONE. As it was, from a distance, it just looked like a dark grocery bag or something. I got SO lucky; my whole life was in that bag, all my money <I’d just cashed my paycheck>, my ID and bank card, everything.

So, yeah. Black is good. :slight_smile:

22

I misnomered; they’re usually called “geoglyphs.” They are kinda nifty! (Also somewhat vandalized! GRR! Some idiots drove all over them with motorcycles. But the gov’t has put up fences now, to discourage that kind of thing.) Zip your car keys in a secure pocket!
Here’s a photo someone else took… (My own photos didn’t come out that well!)

23

I was down in Mexico, a few dozen miles south of Tijuana, helping to build ‘houses’ with the Rotary Club. We were on a little lot on a hillside where two parcels had been cleared and an area between them had been dug out so an outhouse could later be built over it. Somebody had rented a back-hoe or something like that to dig out a perfectly square hole 12 feet wide and 12 feet long and 12 feet deep. Next to that was our building site.

We were finished nailing down chipboard for the roof-ceiling and were starting on the felt and roll-out shingle. I had run out of roofing tacks so I climbed down off the roof using a shipping pallet that had been propped on the side of the shack and ignored the old shovels and barbed-wire that was already piled between the house and a makeshift fence made of more shipping pallets. I came back with a belt-pouch full of tacks and climbed up the pallet, then figured I’d just stand atop the fence and hammer in the edge-line of the roof.

Then there was a wiggling sensation, like an earthquake had just happened. So I stopped and waited for more rumbling, not realizing at the time that the shack I was helping to build hadn’t moved a bit.

Then suddenly I was falling. The makeshift fence had buckled under my weight and my foot had slipped off. I gasped and shouted in fear and glanced down to see my choices: A) Six-foot drop onto rusty tools in the middle of nowhere with no idea how long it would take to find medical help, much less get there. B) Six-foot drop to the top of a 12-foot hole that had been dug for ‘septics’ which, while fortunately not-yet-in-use, had vertical sides and no way to climb out (assuming I didn’t break a leg or ankle or foot or some combination thereof during my 18-foot unbalanced drop. Oh, and that nagging lack-of-nearby-medical-help seemed to be a problem on that side as well. So I chose…

Neither.

I just let my left leg go left and my right leg go right and I remember hearing, quite clearly, everybody else – everyone on the rooftop, plus two families in nearby lots who were watching us foreigners work up a sweat like idiots during the afternoon siesta period, plus a few of the other volunteers on the ground who had glanced up at the time – everybody simultaneously went “Ooh!”

And their “Ooh!” was so much louder than the growling grunt of pain I had planned because my voice was instantly stifled when neither of my legs could fall any further. And to my excruciating amazement I was able to balance atop the crumpled fence, teetering in neither direction but simply sitting there, as if someone had set out a sawhorse for me to casually straddle in a parking lot.

And flies buzzed and the wind blew dust around and finally a friend of mine said, “Are you okay?”

But I couldn’t answer because I was still taking stock of my fortune and my fraternal anatomy and I was suddenly realizing that my face was really scrunched up in an expression of pain and that was good because it meant I was still conscious and alive.

“Hey–” my friend asked again but stopped abruptly as I raised a finger and my sister simultaneously urged, “Give him a minute, Lesa!”

And I spent at least a minute, still straddling the rickety make-shift fence while slowly untwisting my face and taking stock of my physique and learning to breathe normally again. Then I carefully climbed down from the makeshift fence and one of the other volunteers set up a ladder (on the other side of the shack) for people to use while accessing the roof.

—G!
The one thing
we’re all waiting for
is peace on earth
an end to war
It’s a miracle we need
The miracle…
The miracle!
we’re all waiting for
Today!
…–Freddie Mercury (Queen)
…The Miracle
…Miracles

24

Somewhat similar to the OP, I was the backup for this hideous woman who ran a small retail operation in our offices. She had wanted the job I got and hated me for it. Early on I had to cover for her and so I was already nervous as a new employee and also browbeaten by this woman. I thought I had put the cash in the safe but after I left I had that cold sweat realizing I hadn’t, I had left it by the register. I rode the bus to and from work so I had to call a cab to take me back to work to fix it and I was panicking the whole way. Thank God I could put everything to right with no one the wiser. I still get that cold wash of panic thinking of it.

25

More than one, and yes, Fate looks out for fools, little children, and posters named phouka.

My first apartment, and when I’d signed the lease I had no idea how bad an area of town it was. It looked calm enough during the daytime when I’d gone by, but it was a completely different story at night. Even then, I was frighteningly oblivious to my environment. Well, except when I wasn’t.

It was after 10 p.m. on a Saturday night. I’d been out with friends, and one of them dropped me off at my apartment building. My apartment happened to be on the side facing away from the parking lot, and it wasn’t really well lit either. I was cheerfully singing to myself, sleepy, and thinking of stuff I’d be doing the next day, utterly and completely wrapped up in my own thoughts. And then, the proverbial branch snapped behind me, and I whirled around, fists raised. There was a scrawny guy with a desperate face not ten feet from me, frozen mid-stride. Mid-running stride. He muttered something about nice weather and hurried off, head down, shoulders hunched. My only thought was “huh, that was weird. What’s he doing out so late?” It wasn’t until nearly a week later when I was telling the instance as a “boy, that was weird” anecdote, when one of my friends leaned towards me and said, “you realize, you almost got mugged, right? And maybe worse.”

It was much later that I learned ADHD comes with a few gifts, one of them being an awesome reaction time to unexpected events. It’s certainly come in handy. I also know enough now, that I would call the police and report it instead of just shrugging and turning on the TV.

26

When I was seven, long before seat belts were standard in cars I was on a long-ish car trip at night with my Dad. There was nothing to see out the window, so I wondered idly what would happen if I yanked up on the door handle while it was locked.

What happens is the door pops open, and if you’re seven and you don’t let go - the door will swing outward pulling you with it. You’ll slide across the seat and face down, ride a mere foot or so above the gravel on the side of the road at, I dunno about 60 miles per hour.

If you’re lucky, your father has quick responses, and just in time will grab you by the ankle and pull you back in. He will then pull the car over for a good 10 minutes of yelling. We didn’t resume the drive until he stopped shaking. I can still see the road whizzing by my nose and feel only one foot still on the seat.

27

A couple of years ago I was walking back to my car after doing some shocking, I decided to take a small short cut around the back of a couple of parked cars and over a piece of derelict ground.

Walking fast and not really paying attention I stepped on some mud and both feet literally went flying from under me, with barely time to react I landed heavily on my back winded but otherwise apparently unharmed, I just lay there for about thirty seconds gathering my wits and congratulating myself on being able to react just quickly enough that I had landed mostly on my shoulder-blade rather than my spine when I noticed something odd…there was something poking up between my right upper arm and chest, just below my armpit…

On further investigation it was an approximately five inch long section of broken metal pipe pointing straight up from its concrete base… :eek:

So I really did miss disaster by that much… :slight_smile:

28

What was the “shocking” thing you did?

29

I’ve had a few close calls while sailing. I once stood up and grabbed the backstay a half second before the boat broached and the cockpit filled with water. I hung on until the boat righted itself and the water drained.

Another time I felt something - I don’t know what - and simultaneously ducked and moved forward of the shrouds just as we went into an unexpected jibe. I avoided being hit with the boom and probably killed either by the impact or subsequent drowning.

But the most potentially dangerous was in my first big ocean race during Antigua Race Week. We were on a really long off-shore leg and I had moved farther up on the doghouse roof near the mast. My sixth sense (and conscious logic) told me the skipper was going to tack, and sure enough he did, without calling it. I moved just in time to avoid being hanged by a reef line. I walked around with a big ol’ rope burn on my neck for a couple of days telling ever more outrageous lies about how I got it.

30

Does it count if you actually do go in the ditch (6 times that I remember, with 5 different vehicles even)?

31

My first apartment was in this little compound with a central courtyard. In typical Southern California fashion, apartments all opened onto the walkways looking onto the courtyard. The laundry room was across the courtyard on the ground level.

I was on the second floor, just below me was a young couple - a large Samoan gent, his tiny blonde wife, and their little girl - I’d say about 3 1/2 years old. The little girl was always running around the courtyard - you could often hear dad calling for her from inside their apartment.

One Saturday morning I was taking care of laundry, running back and forth to my apartment. Because it was hot out I was wearing only gym shorts. (This was back in the days before they were baggy style.) So, on one trip into the laundry room I’m standing there moving clothes from the washer to the dryer or something and the little girls runs into the laundry room giggling - she shuts the laundry room door behind her - and she’s stark naked. So, I’m standing in this room wearing barely nothing, and there is a naked little girl with me and the door is shut - and a large Samoan man nearby probably wondering where she ran off to.

Needless to say, my life flashed before my eyes, and my future didn’t look too promising. I froze.

Thank the heavens, the little girl turned around and ran out the door. I stood there for what seemed like 20 minutes - I didn’t want to be seen walking out right after her. And nothing ever became of it - no Samoan beatdown, no arrest and conviction. Whew.

32

Dear Lord! Count me OUT for any further dopefests - you people are damn dangerous!

33

My friend who lives PA, his wife and their (at the time) 2 year old son came to visit me a few years back. They stayed in NYC and I met them there. One afternoon we went to Times Square. We walked around, went to stores and ate dinner. When we got on the Subway to head back downtown to where they were staying I happened to notice the time was 6:10 pm. A few hours later we turned on the TV and saw there was a ruckus in the city. The day we were there was the day they discovered a car bomb in Times Square. They had closed Times Square at around 6:20 that day, we missed it by a few minutes. While we didn’t notice it at the time we must have walked passed the truck in question a half a dozen times and we specifically did stop at the Tee Shirt vendor who reported the incident.

What made me laugh in hind sight (since everything worked out fine) was I was making fun of my friends’ In-Laws because they were from West Virginia and begged them not to go because they were sure if their Daughter and Grandson went to NYC they would get “Killed by a terrorist!” Guess they knew better than I did :slight_smile:

34

When I was a kid, we were horsing around in the back of the school bus one day when I fell hard against the back doors. The doors banged open and I fell out of the bus while it was driving along. By sheer blind luck, my backpack fell out with me and I landed on it as I hit the road. I eventually skidded to a stop but amazingly, the bus kept on going, so I wobbled to my feet and started running after it while swearing violently under my breath.

Eventually the other kids on the bus were able to scream loud enough at the bus driver so that he believed them. The bus stopped, I got back on, and we carried on our merry way back home. I was incredibly lucky not to break any bones or to fall under the wheels of any vehicles that were behind us, and the backpack saved me from getting shredded by the road and needing skin grafts…

Oh, and there was the time when I was a kid and found my uncle’s handgun and played around with it, goofing off and putting it to my temple and posing in front of the mirror, etc… it was only when I pointed it out the window that I pulled the trigger and found out it was loaded…

35

A few months back, I was bouldering in a park near my house. Not a lot of good climbing there, but I found one rock with a steep overhang on one side. I found a good starting spot, sunk my hands into a crack, and swung my feet up off the ground. After a second or two, the crack split right open, I fell backwards, and a sizeable chunk of the rock fell on my leg.

My head was barely 4 feet off the ground when the rock broke, and yet somehow in the time that elapsed as I fell, I thought “If this rock lands on my leg, it will shatter my knee”, and I pushed on it to redirect it before it hit. It grazed my knee and gave me a hefty abrasion, but I wasn’t bleeding or broken, so I walked away. I later went back and found the rock, and my guess was that it weighed 200 - 250 pounds.

Adrenaline is a very cool feature of the human body.

36

Here are a few two-wheeled vehicle stories:

When I was a kid I somehow flipped off my bike and landed with my throat pressing against a stick poking out of the ground. A little faster and another couple inches and I might not’ve made it to my teens.

In high school I was mountain biking with a friend, but didn’t have a great bike for it: kinda cheap, a little old. Went down some pretty rocky paths and I guess I must’ve stressed the frame, because the next time I rode it I felt something give and the whole frame had snapped in the middle. If I’d been going down a decent hill it could’ve ended poorly.

In college on my bike I caught the barest glimpse of a car not slowing down behind me and jumped onto the sidewalk just as it plowed through where I was, destroying the back of my bike.

In Bali I was paying attention to traffic as I came to a red light on a 110CC scooter and put my foot down as I was braking. I wasn’t moving very fast, but I was closer to the curb than I thought. I scraped my ankle jerking my foot back up, but had I not I might’ve broken it as I ran the scooter flush with the curb.

Is it bad that I want to get a motorcycle?

37

I’m walking down the sidewalk, starting to cross in front of a driveway, when I realize that the car has started to back out of the driveway very quickly. I react instinctively by walking backwards as fast as I can. The driver finally notices me in the rear view mirror and slams the breaks on.

If I had stopped to think or tried to turn around, I would definitely have been hit.

38

Lessee:

three near drownings
nearly fell from a high railroad trestle
survived two very nasty incoming attacks in Vietnam
survived a magnitude 9.2 earthquake

39

Back in the early 90s a friend of mine suggested I invest with the comany he was using. Thankfully, I chose not to. The company was Madoff.

40

When Enron bought up the power company my cousin worked for, they were pressuring employees to convert their retirement money to Enron shares. My cousin took the leap. His now ex-wife took her half in cash. He had to leave retirement and is still working at age 70. She’s retired. I’d say she dodged a major bullet.