Age 3: Tried to plug a lamp into an extension cord. It was tight. I held the extension cord with both hands, and the lamp plug with my teeth. My teeth slipped, and gripped the exposed prongs, which held me in place until my mom came looking for me.
Electric fences have nothing on household current in your mouth. I know, because my mom let the fence wire slip off the stick right while I was crossing under.
Age seven: messing around by the pond with my brother. We saw a broken wood handle sticking out of the water near the edge. Right next to it was a spill tube which went straight down twenty feet to keep the pond from flooding across the road to the fields. I said, “hey, a pirate buried treasure here, and broken his shovel. Let’s dig it up. We both gripped the broken handle, and lifted a big scoop of slime. It was actually a pitchfork, with mud, moss, and several snakes entwined. We ran so fast our asses be eat us back to the house.
Age 8: encountered a water moccasin while walking alone. Afraid to turn my back to it, I got a stick to kill it. It slithered a couple of feet to the creek, and it’s head popped up, like a cobra in a basket. I’m pretty sure I killed it, but when it went under and didn’t come back up, I was afraid to drag the bottom to check. We fought at least a half hour. I had such a tight grip on the stick, as I ran away I couldn’t toss it. I had to pry my fingers loose from it.
Age 9: just sat for breakfast and heard a terrible crash. We ran upstairs, and saw a huge pile of bricks all over my bed. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling. My mom said they must have left extras in the attic from the chimney. Ten minutes sooner I’d have been bean dip. I always thought it suspicious that it was centered entirely over my bed, and nowhere else.
Age 12: A man in a car stopped in front of me as I was crossing a street. He asked for directions to the library. He started fondling himself in front of me. I backed away so I couldn’t see his shrivel worm, and gave him directions. He drove away and I finished delivering my papers.
Age 15: The state of Illinois gave me a learners permit, valid for a year. Scared the begeezus out of my mom driving to Oklahoma to find a new home.
Cat and mouse on the freeway with a car packed with either college guys, or stoners hoping to become a famous rock band. We went back and forth between fifty and eighty passing each other. The scary part was when we got to OK City. I’m on the beltway, or wrap around, or whatever it is called there. Dad was driving a pickup with my brothers, and I was driving the Valiant with my mom. Dad gave directions on the CB where he’d found a storage unit. All the sudden, the gas pedal goes flat to the floor, and we are gaining speed on a freeway full of traffic. I tried lifting it with my foot, but it was just floppy. I take an exit, run a red light doing a Louie, and hit the ramp back on the other direction, which is uphill. I turn off the ignition and muscle it to the side as it coasts to a stop. My mom was no help. She was snow white and pissed herself. I got dad on the CB, and told him where we were stuck. Apparently there is a spring attached somewhere to the accelerator, and one end had popped off. He actually told me he was impressed I didn’t wreck. That part was cool.
So that covers the first quarter of my life. The rest is much more dangerous.