I’ve had my fair share of close calls. I used to joke that the Grim Reaper has had his hand on my shoulder toying with me my whole life, but now I’m not so sure that I was far off.
My life has been full of near misses but the first one I remember was when I was around 7 years old. To be fair, it was very low stakes. I was in the grocery store with my mom, and we were almost at the checkout line. For some reason on a Tuesday afternoon our grocery store was packed, and we were waiting in line for a good ten minutes. We were walking to put our items on the conveyor belt when I heard a screech of cart tires. A rogue cart was headed straight for me, the wobbly wheel scratching the floor as the cart boy tried to gain control of it. I stood there frozen, my eyes crossing as the cart got closer and closer. After putting our groceries on the track, my mom saw the cart headed straight for me. She acted quickly and pulled me aside and the cart smacked the fridge at the end of the aisle, denting it while knocking down the surrounding candy.
The next one came three years later on one of the last days of recess of elementary school. I was hanging around with a few of my friends on the monkey bars (we wanted to play kickball but the team was full) and we liked to race and see who was the fastest going from one end to the other. I was the last one and as soon as Johnny whistled, off I went. My friends were cheering me on with each bar I grabbed onto, my heart racing as I pushed myself to the end. Once I reached the last few bars, I noticed they were a little slick and wet, presumable from the sweaty hands of my friends. I was reaching the second to last bar when I slipped and fell onto the mulch below. Now I know you must be thinking, how was that incident a near miss? Well, I was less than an inch from smacking my head on the pole, and by my understanding that could’ve done some serious damage.
The next few years I had no memorable misses and soon enough I was trying to get my license. Most teenagers have probably had a near miss while driving and I certainly did. I was taking my test to get my license, and somehow each one of my proctored drives had gone on without a hitch. But when I woke up the morning of the test, I just had a gut feeling that something would happen. I triple-checked my mirrors, brakes, and after some weird looks by my driving instructor, I decided to go and see what would happen. We went through the usual driving test criteria. Parallel parking somehow went smoothly (Did I almost hit a car? Yes. But that’s not my near miss). Next, we went on the highway (I thought it would be here, but it somehow wasn’t). The rest of the test consisted of me stopping fully at a stop sign and staying under the speed limit. I was actually doing good. Hell, even my instructor was boasting about my abilities once we neared the end. I was waiting to turn left at a busy intersection to the parking lot, feeling relieved that I lucked out of a near miss when I ignored the most important rule of the streets, looking both ways. My instructor screamed as I was halfway in the lane staring down a semi-truck. I stepped on the gas, but I wasn’t fast enough as the semi clipped the trunk, spinning us around a few times. We were lucky not to flip over. But seeing that my instructor’s eyes were bulging out of her head, and she couldn’t stop screaming for a few seconds after we got to a complete stop, I knew I had failed. I gave her a sheepish smile and she shook her head and wrote a slip that I had failed at the top.
I seem to have cliché near misses. You guessed it, the next one was on a plane. I was finally going on a study abroad my senior year of college and of course, it was on the way there. if anything, I would’ve preferred the near miss to be on the flight back home, but I guess I’m just not that lucky. Anyway, I was halfway into my ten-hour flight and I had just woken up from a nap. Well, I can’t really call it a nap considering I was woken up every time I almost fell asleep, either by the flight attendant’s cart of food or by a passenger stumbling their way to the bathroom. I had just “woken up” from my nap when we experienced some turbulence. I had never been on a plane before, so I didn’t know this type of turbulence wasn’t common. Our plane rocked back and forth before diving down suddenly (okay I knew that part wasn’t normal). I watched the wide eyes of my fellow passengers turn to sheer panic as we continued to dive down. Airbags were deployed and the screaming was deafening as my stomach plummeted as quickly as our plane. After what felt like several minutes of free falling, we finally were pulled up and were holding steady. A few passengers had puked out of nervousness or because of the sudden drop, and as I was recovering my shaky breath I watched the vomit roll down the aisle, causing a flight attendant to slip and fall. I don’t know how close we were to the ground but the pilot or should I say copilot popped on saying the pilot passed out. The co-pilot was trying to play It cool, but you could hear the shakiness in his voice. I had managed to calm down, but I didn’t realize how scared I was until the person sitting next to me pried my hands from his arm. I was on edge the rest of the plane ride and was almost considering hopping on a boat, but I think you can see why I talked myself out of that idea. To this day I still hate planes.
The next time was in New York. No, I didn’t get mugged and yes I drove all the way to New York, couldn’t risk another torturous plane. I guess modes of transportation aren’t my thing as this time I was on a subway. This was probably 2-3 years after college. I hadn’t traveled much and one of my buddies decided to move to work on Wall Street. After months of begging, he finally convinced me to visit (after two days of driving) and I was a nervous wreck. We went on the pier (I was careful to not get too close to the water) and I didn’t even go into his office because I was afraid the elevator would break down and crash. I took every precaution that I could, but the night before I was leaving, my buddy convinced me to go to the bars across town. For the majority of my trip, I insisted that we walk, but there was this one bar he wanted me to experience. After a lot of reluctance, I agreed and surprisingly we were fine on the way there. On the way back though was a different story. I tried to convince him to walk back but after he drunkenly told me we would be facing an hour's walk back, I decided to not put up a fight. We sat in the slimy seats, and we were approaching our stop when I stood up. My friend remained seated, which I should’ve, and before I knew it the subway (without warning) slammed on the brakes. Being tipsy and already off balance, I flew forward and landed on my stomach before sliding down the disgusting floor. If it wasn’t for me scooting my body away at the last second, I would’ve smacked into one of the walls. I never had a liking towards subways but I’m sure I probably never get on one again.
Somehow the last decade and a half have been kind to me. I was so nervous about having a near miss I practically missed out on life for several years. Fast forward to meeting my now wife and having two young children later, I’ve finally gotten it out of my head that I’m predisposed to having these incidents. I’ve been able to go-cart race, tube on the water, ski, ride rollercoasters, and more. I probably won’t try skydiving but hey at least I’ve been able to do something other than stay at home all the time.
My latest adventure was parasailing. I’ve always wanted to try it and feel the wind on my face while I glide over the water. I decided to take my family on a trip to the Caribbean and this was the last thing I wanted to do before going back home. My wife and kids stayed at the resort, all too tired to come out for the last day, so it was just me and the captain on the water. I probably had been pulled around for fifteen minutes and I was just about to signal the captain to stop when I heard a seagull squawk around me. It sounded like it was right near my ear, so I slowly looked up to see a seagull flying around my parachute. For some reason, I thought I could shoo it away by flicking my hand at it, but that caused the captain to take a left turn as he must’ve thought I was signaling him. I looked in horror as my chute knocked into the seagull. The seagull tried to fight back and ended up ripping several large holes into the parachute. In a matter of a few seconds I was in the air, perfectly content with the boat ride, and the next I was plummeting down to the water I once admired from afar. As I was falling into the water, the ropes were twisting around my body as I fought hard to untangle myself. I lost that fight though as I smacked the water face first, my arms wrapped tightly around me like a cocoon as I tried to kick my way upright. At this point, I was still being dragged from the boat, and I could feel the intensity slow down so I was hoping the captain took notice. But I’ve never been the best swimmer. I could never hold my breath for longer than a minute and I could sense that I was nearing the end of my breath as I squirmed around. After what felt like five minutes, the captain managed to pull me out and I gasped for air while coughing the water I had accumulated in my lungs. The captain asked if I was okay and I nodded absentmindedly, knowing that my short stint of luck had run out.