I was about to say "never that close to death," but Zenkitty's Smokey Mountain almost-plunge story reminded me of the time I fell asleep while driving on I-55 and woke up just as my car was aiming itself at the 4-foot-high barrier in the median while going 60 mph. I swerved just in time to only have scrapes on the driver's side of the car from the reflectors embedded in the barrier. At least I wasn't sleepy anymore!

various college nights blacked out

Mmmm...no black outs but I definitely courted alcohol poisoning once or twice.

Yep, that'll wake you up all right.

ooo, then there was the time (this one time, at band camp) my front tire blew out at 60 mph with a solid line of traffic on my left and a 6-foot concrete construction barrier on my right. I held the car in a straight line by sheer force of will, as my passenger freaked out like a mammal. I don't remember getting onto the side of the road.

My day is looking better and better. As I sit here safely at my desk, endangered only by paper cuts.

I too forgot being held up at gunpoint. But I actually don't think I was at much risk of dying; the kid wanted to rob us, not kill us, and wasn't planning to shoot us, so we were only in danger if he got scared and slippery fingers.

mr. flea, at whom the gun was actually being pointed, might disagree with my sanguine assessment of the sitch.

I wonder if attending the party at the Bates Motel (this really crumbling down disgusting house long inhabited by students) on the eve of its demolition counted as endangering life and limb. There was a fair amount of alcohol inspired demolition that occurred that night. I think at least one set of stairs ceased to be.

I've had my fair share of motor vehicle accidents and could have bit it in a couple of them. Mostly though I'd have to say the closest I've been to death was after I was widowed. My grief was so intense I almost had my self convinced that the only way to be with him was to join him.

Oh, and I did have a large handgun pointed at me once. In my late teen years, I was living with a bunch of people in an apartment in Ann Arbor. One of my housemates was an old hippie radical from the sixties, but who liked to flex her second amendment rights, and owned a Charter Arms Bulldog .44 Special, a revolver that shot bullets so big that it only held five rounds in the cylinder, not six. Also, her bedroom faced the front door, and she kept the door open.

I came home quite late one night, stumbling into the kitchen, when I heard her voice from the other room: "Who's there?"

I said, "Me."

I heard "Me who?" ::CLICK::

I said, "It's me, Sean, Mary. Don't shoot."

I heard "Oh." ::ka-click::

Didn't freak me out until the next day. Not that I was ever bothered by the gun in the house. It was quite a nice gun, and she cared for it well and knew how to shoot, and was a pretty cool customer, so I trusted her not to shoot without cause, but I did sweat a little the next afternoon, thinking about how close she came to plugging me.

laura made me want to hug her. and B too. and then her again.

My closest brushes with death have all been in airplanes, and possibly in my head. I have been flying for decades, and don't think anything of it, and then there's that moment on landing, just before touchdown, that I grasp the armrests and my brain goes into capital letters: THIS IS THE TIME. And then it's over, and nobody notices that we almost crashed.

(It doesn't happen on every landing, and I have been in some hairy landing situations with crosswinds and puddlejumpers, but when it does happen, I am absolutely certain.)

When I was 3 (I don't remember this), I climbed a 6 foot bookcase and brought it down on top of me. Apparently, I fell under a table, so the bookcase didn't squash me flat. I don't know whether it would have killed me, but it would not haev been fun to find out.

I once looked out from the top of Dixville Notch Promontory, in New Hampshire, and thought I was already falling the 2000 foot drop to the ground. I wasn't; I wasn't even close; but I had to sit down very far away from the edge and stare out at the horizon to get my heart to stop fighting its way out of my ribcage.

(Knock wood, I've never been in a high-speed car accident; never been mugged; never been hospitalized; never broken anything more serious than a toe.)

Okay, here’s where I actually had bloody thoughts of revenge:

An old 4-plex I lived in where an old lady and her old son took exception to me for no reason I could figure . I was polite, I was courteous. This guy once had me blocked in the driveway while he washed and polished his car (I was the only one with permission from the landlord to use the driveway anyway). I was late to an appointment and asked him to please move. He said “When I’m done” and proceeded to languorously polish his car. The old woman use to give every visitor to my place the stink-eye. I tried to think positively “At least they’re keeping an eye on the place in case something bad happens”. They were. My apartment was burgled of everything resellable, including a new Mac, on Easter day. I found out from what I overheard the old dude say that he and his mother had watched the whole thing happen. And never called the cops.

Another one was when I was a master tenant of a house. I was on unpaid medical leave at the time. At the risk of putting off some prospective renters, I was very candid about what the household was like: recycling, energy conservation, etc. I got two guys who said they were into that. Fine. Well, when they moved in they did whatever they felt like. Polite requests and talking got nowhere.

I had just gotten a small worker’s comp settlement and was finally being able to put some $ towards rehab. My RSI was getting a little better through that work. Stress makes my RSI worse. Dealing with those guys (one in particular) made it get worse again, wasting all the money and work I’d put towards getting better. Eventually, when it looked like there was no alternative, I gave them both 30 days’ notice.

Meanwhile, they got boy’s club buddyish with my landlord and talked him into letting them move right behind me (I was actually supposed to be allowed to move in back when that house was done). I wanted to be away from these belligerently inconsiderate people and he made them my neighbors! The worse of the two stole a couple of things of mine, including a waffle iron I’d inherited from my family.

Anyway, I really wanted revenge. The guy had lied just to get cheap rent. He’d stolen things. He made my RSI worse when I’d said upfront that I needed a harmonious household and been clear about what that looked like to me. He wangled his way into the house I was supposed to move into. And because he’d moved in behind me, now I had to give notice on the house and pay a lot more rent somewhere else.

Yeah, that guy drove me so far to the edge that it was a very good thing I didn’t have a gun. (I realize it must sound like I had a minor amount of provocation, but telling every little detail that piled up would just take forever and bore you.)

Closest to death:

Extremely depressed periods when I’ve been looking into and doing cost/benefit analysis on various suicide methods. Getting caught in a powerful undertow in Hawaii Shooting down a waterfall in Hawaii and forgetting that the pressure of all that water would be bearing down on me if I surfaced directly up