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by Rick Walton
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has compiled a list of non-automobile related activities that had the best chance of sending you to the hospital emergency room in 1990. Topping the list is "Stairs and Steps", dangerous little tricksters that almost a million of you fell for. After that come "Bicycles", pedaling more than half a million of you to the doctor's table. And then come "Basketball", "Football", and "Baseball". Next time that party bore mentions his old war wounds, ask him if he's sure he didn't just slip on the AstroTurf while chasing cheerleaders.
Well now this all may be interesting information for emergency room doctors who have heavy mortgages on their houses, or to people who get in shape for their basketball, football and baseball games by running up stairs and bicycling cross-country, but it doesn't affect me in the least. You see, I don't play basketball, football or baseball, I don't own a bike, and I take steps two at a time, cutting my stair risks in half.
I had to read way down the list to get to the accidents that interested me. Near the bottom of the list, past "Dancing With Wolves" and "Blender Misuse" I finally came to the activities that would most likely do me in:
1. "Trying to Open a Can of Tomato Soup With a Dull Can Opener, and Slicing Off Your Fingers While Trying to Twist Off the Partially Separated, Razor-Sharp Top."
2. "Being Struck By the Dread BROKEN CHAIN LETTER Curse."
3. "Receiving One Too Many Computerized Telephone Calls, Slamming the Phone Just a Bit Too Hard Onto the Receiver, and Smashing Every Bone in Your Hand."
4. "Trying to Kick the Barking Dog Next Door, Missing, and Falling on Your Back as the Dog Sinks His Teeth Into Your Thigh."
5. "Getting a Hernia While Carrying the Junk Mail In from the Mailbox."
6. "Getting Your Hair Cut By A Barber Who's More Interested In Telling You About His Kid's Lacrosse Tournament Than In Paying Attention To Where Your Hair Ends and Your Ears Begins."
7. "Falling Into Foreign Toilets."
8. "Being Overzealous With the Dental Floss and Slicing Your Jaw Off."
9. "Trying to Get Into a Hammock and Having it Flip You To the Ground Where You Land on a Sprinkler Head and Knock Out Your Teeth."
and finally,
10. "Having Your Left Leg Fall Asleep While You're Standing In a Grocery Line Waiting For the New Clerk to Get a Price Check on the Water-Packed Tuna, Then Falling Over and Knocking Into the Magazine Rack and Having Six Hundred Gossip Rags Crush Your Enquiring Mind."
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