Everybody Says I Think Too Much...They're Not Wrong

I burned my finger the other night on the toaster oven. Burns are no fun. I think, bang for your buck, they hurt more than most injuries. Most injuries, if you leave them alone, don't move, etc., don't hurt as bad. A burn, if possible, hurts more. Every time I stopped icing it, it burned like the flames of Hades. And the more I told myself not to think about it, the more I wanted to claw my hand off. But today's blog is more about cold things than about burning things, and definitely not about clawing things. But it is sort of morbid in the same way.

See, sitting at the table, trapped with a finger in a mug of icewater, the mind wanders. I noticed how the cold water stings after a while, and thought about how much worse it would be to have your whole body plunged into ice water instead of just a finger. My ice water was about the same temperature as every pond, river, and lake gets in the winter, and it illustrated for me quite clearly that there'd be a big difference between getting pushed in the swimming pool and falling in a frozen lake. It began to make sense to me that people could be paralyzed from the cold and unable to swim to shore. I always figured I'd be okay if I fell in really cold water, but would I?

I like to figure my worst case scenarios*, and normally, on this subject, it'd end well. Walking across a bridge, eyeing someone coming at me from the other direction, I might think, "If he were to suddenly push me off this bridge, I'd be okay. ...True, the backpack might weigh me down a bit, and for sure my cell phone would be ruined forever ...but I guess I have most of my friends' e-mail addresses or I can get their info from friends or relatives....", and I'd feel fine.

But now, well, can't be so cavalier about it, now can we?

*Playing worst case scenarios is fun. Usually because it makes you feel pretty good that it's not happening to you at that moment.

---What if the bus I'm on tips over? Could I climb out the window? If it starts to fall, should I hold on to something, or start climbing upwards?
---What if the guy at the next teller is about to rob the bank at gunpoint? Should I be brave and take him down, call for help, or cower in the corner?
---What if a chip of the skyscraper above were to suddenly fall off and come hurtling to the ground where I'm standing? Would I hear it first and have time to get away, or would it be too late? Or would it have started falling before I got there and so I wouldn't hear it break off?

I makes everyday life much more interesting, believe me.

Write me comments. I would like to know three things:

1. Has anyone actually fallen in near-freezing water and what it was like? Any tips? John is the only person I know who could answer this, but he was incomprehensibly drunk at the time so I'm thinking his recollection will be sketchy at best.

2. Random worst case scenarios you've considered at one point or another, or

3. Links to other sites that claim to tell you how to survive completely random and unlikely situations, like being trapped in a net, suspended from a tree (as many cartoons and cheesy sitcoms would have us believe happens every time you go camping).