As for me, my first thought was cleaning the leaves and pine needles out of the gutters up on a ladder, as it needs doing again for the 4th time this season, and I ain’t gettin’ any younger and my coordination and balance ain’t gettin’ any better. And I’m too stubborn and cheap to pay someone $200+ a pop when it’s such a frequent need this year. Fortunately/unfortunately, it’s a one-story, so it’ll a slow painful death after I fall.
How about you? What job is most likely to do YOU in?
One of these days I’m going to go ass-over-hamper down the basement stairs with my laundry and crack my head on the concrete floor, never to be heard from again.
I put a Care Bear in a nook in the wall at the bottom of the stairs, just so I have something nice to look at while I bleed out.
Ooh, that’s a likely possibility here, too. I did put in a 2nd handrail, so there’s a handrail on both sides, and theoretically I should always be holding on to at least 1 side, but it doesn’t always work out that way!
ETA: I should get a Care Bear so I’ll be ready for the inevitable.
Widow-maker heart attack while shoveling the snow. It’s not that I’m too cheap to buy a snowblower, but my boys are 5, 3 and 6 months - I just think I can wait out Death until they’re old enough to do it for me. I’m 46, so that first snow 18 years from now and I’ve forgotten to get a blower, I’m a goner. 64, a year shy of retirement. Dammit!
Changing a light bulb. I have one that’s up high out over a staircase. I have to lean out and reach up to grab the hanging light and then pull it back to me. I then have to lean forward as I unscrew the dead bulb and screw in a new one. If (or when) I slip, it’ll be an eight foot tumble down the stairs.
Driving to or back home from work. I’m convinced that other than old age and associated diseases (heart attack, stroke, cancer, etc.), if I die before my time, it’s going to be in a car crash. There are WAY too many bad drivers out there.
This. I did this on my house this spring for the first time in years. Being on the ladder wasn’t so bad by itself, but I was also dragging the garden hose up with me to blast debris out of the gutter. A two-story-tall length of garden hose is surprisingly heavy and clumsy, and prevents you from fully using both hands on the ladder as you climb. I don’t recommend it, and will be looking at different methods next year.
I did just such a fall recently, but I fall well so there was only minor injury. I thought I was on the last step, but I was actually on the next-to-last step. I stepped over the dog laying at the bottom of the stairs and went flying/tumbling. My phone was in my left hand but was fine. I landed face first and banged up the bridge of my nose.
When I looked in the mirror afterwards, I looked like the MMA dude who, after the fight is stopped, looks around incredulously, insisting, “I’m fine, why’d they stop the fight” while cuckoos fly around his head.
But my answer to the OP is a chainsaw/tree felling adventure. Especially now that my gf bought an ATV with a winch.
Another candidate for a heart attack while shoveling snow here. I’ve been having cardiac problems for some years and got a stent six years ago, and every time winter comes since then, I dread the times I have to shovel my driveway. I also get very exhausted by it every time, though it’s not a very big area I have to shovel.
Honestly, probably dying of a breakthrough infection from some maskless, unvaccinated idiot who coughs in my general direction while I’m shopping for groceries, which is one of my primary responsibilities.
