19 Dubious Achievements

Vagaries

19 is my Number…

The List:

Exited a commercial airliner on an emergency slide

Caught a bat in the shower with a water glass (set it free)

Shot a snake in the attic with a bow and arrow

Piloted a 60 ft yacht through 10 miles of the Inland Waterway

Found a missing piece of jewelry with a prayer to St. Anthony

Saw an NFL QB punch a pedestrian in Harvard Square

Nearly drowned as a baby sitting in the shallow end of the pool

Bit off and swallowed the end of a plastic spoon in my high chair

At home from 4th grade for 6 weeks with a fever, got hooked on 3 soaps

Slept through the collapse of my antique bed in a rental house

Got voted laziest of my graduating high school class

Got locked outside on a 2nd floor gable roof and had to jump for it

Flew off a willow tree rope swing at its highest point of arc

Did an accidental motorcycle wheelie and stepped off the back unhurt

Looked the wrong way and didn’t see de Gaulle on Bastille Day ‘63

Have had 3 cars stolen and had to abandon 3 others in place

Spent a week in Italy knowing I would run out of gas on return, did so

Tannest ever after days on a Nassau beach, a clerk told me to get some sun

Singed off my eyebrows in an explosion involving an old gas stove

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You’d think I’d be more humble.