Men Do Stupid Things

As if we all didn't know that!



I, myself, have a long list of "Stupid Things I've Done."

The earliest I can remember, and perhaps the one that could have ended all future possible idiotic acts, was sitting out behind the garage and wrapping a rope around my neck. Not that really tight, mind you. No particular reason...I was just foolin' around. (The "foolin' around" must be coded onto a certain gene in men; if you have too much of this chemical combination, Darwin's Laws will see to it that the error is corrected.)

Soon, my head began to swell and my neck tighten as the deep arteries pushed blood into my head that could not return via the closer-to-the-surface veins. (Does this remind you of how a certain kind of sex toy works?)

Well, anyway, panic ensued, and I fought to maintain control as I began quickly to unwrap the rope. The trouble was, I had used a really long rope...something like ten or more feet long...and it was taking just too damn long to get the coils off my neck.

Would I manage to take it all off before I passed out and, presumably, died?

Folks, it was close...very close. I remember passing the rope around and over my head, switching it between hands as fast as my little becoming numb fingers would go. My vision faded, each heartbeat pounded behind my beginning-to-protrude eyeballs, and my head felt as though it was going to explode.

Even as I struggled to save my stupid life, my mind was divided into the present and corporeal world (don't panic don't panic don't panic...work faster work faster work faster) and the more reflective, philosophical world (as this it? is this how I die? I hated the thought of my mother and father thinking that I had done this on purpose!)

Finally, just when the world before my eyes went red then black, I slipped the last loop off my neck and fresh air rushed into my lungs. I would have fallen to my knees, but I found that I had already done so.

The joy of living--a feeling so sweet and refreshing that, almost fifty years later, it recalls itself to me whenever I stand on a cliff or am on the edge of a thunderstorm and am washed by clean air--suffused througout every cell in my body. I was alive.

I never told this to anyone. Until now.

Mike Sledge

(Picture source unknown...)