ghts from the ammoline // (Scott Johnson).
Ammo Grrll pauses at the year-end to log NONFATAL STUPIDITIES. (A Partial …). She writes:
TonyP173 was a dear friend and once said to me that he had tallied up six to seven times when he SHOULD have died, not including in Vietnam.
The mere fact of dying in battle gives you some sense of heroism, and even meaning. Joe and I have had a lot of near-misses, and each one is mind-numbingly stupid.
I’ve previously written about my trip on the rowboat to Lake Ida in Alexandria (Minnesota) when a storm and windstorm were forecast. The Weather Service made that prediction come true in a rare event. I was there with a hilarious girl cousin. I don’t mean that she was regaling me in jokes while we fought to save our lives. It wasn’t THAT kind of “hysterical”, but the OTHER kind where she was so agitated that she couldn’t even bail water from the boat while she rowed. However, the screaming incentivized my to keep rowing, even if it was just to get sucked of it. We made it back to the dock in a matter of weeks, thanks to gale-force winds that drowned out most her caterwauling.
Consequences: Wet clothes, blistered fingers, no boat privileges, and a very angry father.
There was also the time when Susan and Joe, young marrieds, were having breakfast in their small St. Paul apartment. We were offered a “European” kitchen, but we settled on either “Latvia”, or “Albania” for the European country.
All I can remember is that there was only one outlet, and that the fridge was also plugged in to it. I tried to unplug my coffeepot and plug in my “two-seater toaster”, but the coffeepot plug was stuck. Joe was a young man who had taken an IQ exam for a job application. His score was so high that he was deemed unfit for the job. “I’m sorry, but our experience is that people who are THIS smart do not get along well with others.” (And that might partly explain where we are today as a country…particularly at its highest reaches.)
On that day, however, at least 70 percent of his IQ had vanished. I believe he was anxious to get the toast. Our family members and friends have learned the hard way: Joe must eat his meal at the appointed time.
He dug a spoon out of the outlet to “free” it. After a loud sound that sounded like the “ZAP!” in comic books, he realized that he was only holding the handle of the spoon. Did I mention that he was barefoot, and there was water on the ground? You thought he had naturally-curly hair.
Baruch Hashem (praise God) was fine with it. He had just missed claiming a Patent on the first primitive Defibrillation Machine in the world. I should have yelled, “CLEAR!”
We didn’t have a car for seven years of marriage so I can only recall a few hitch-hiking adventures that nearly went wrong. They were thankfully not involving psychotics but creepy guys. Although it was the freewheelin’ 60s, it was still stupid to do it. It was a choice between freezing to death in Minneapolis or hitch-hiking the two times that real danger was avoided. Did I mention that it was still dumb?
Weather seems to be my main enemy. Like many Minnesotans, I’ve had several Blizzard Encounters with the Slip-Slidey Kind. One time, I was getting off my night-job after an icestorm and realized that I had less control over my car than if some fiend had a remote control. A kind couple living near Como Park took me in until it reached over 34 degrees and the noon sunlight had melted enough ice to allow me to get home. We exchanged Christmas cards for many more years!
Another terrifying incident occurred in a blizzard. I was driving with my three-year old daughter from Rockville to Alexandria for my mother’s birthday party. After having driven off the road at least three more times, I pulled off at a Sauk Centre gas station, weeping, to get my Daddy to come and collect me. His friend rode along in his car, so he could drive Daddy’s car back while he drove his own. This is what Daddies do. A 30-year-old girl is still “his little boy.”
Rain has been as bad as snow. I once was a Good Samaritan, taking someone home from a meeting at St. Cloud, when a major gullywasher had been predicted. If I had stayed home, I would have made my way home just in time. I was caught in the middle a blinding torrential rainstorm. I was unable to keep up with the wipers and became disoriented. It finally stopped, and I realized that the “white middle line” I was trying to follow was actually the one on the left. I had been driving in the opposite lane for several miles. Think about all the columns that you would have missed! YIKES!
I was a moronic teenager when I drove impaired three to four times. I used the clever strategies drunks use to avoid detection such as driving 14 miles per hour.
My childhood best friend and I were in Maui when we had just enjoyed a wonderful meal at a fancy French restaurant. She had driven to the restaurant. The beautiful waiter convinced us to order 3 count ’em 3 kir royales (a champagne drink) with dinner, and then 3 count ’em 3, after-dinner coffee drinks with Rum and Cream. The bill was $200 40 years ago, with a math-impaired tip. My hippie brother-in law recalled this story and said: “Boy, I recall when, if your had $200, you could quit you job!”
Carol, a sensible and smart doctor, was driving me. I believed that I was fine. Carol stood up shakily, and said, “Uh Susie, you better get the keys.” We drove along steep cliffs at night, seeing twice, and somehow made it to our condo, where I quickly fell asleep. Since then, I have not driven drunk. In fact, I don’t drink much anymore. I knew I had my “pass”.
As I mentioned above, this is only part of the list. I will conclude with this. When I was driving from Alexandria to the Twin Cities, one time I came upon a battered pickup truck that had a mattress in it. I thought, “That doesn’t look safe,” as I merged into the next lane. The mattress flew out from the truck bed and landed exactly where I was. Brakes creaked, people drove wildly, but miraculously, no one crashed. I was shaking so bad that I had to pull over at Krispie Creme.
