I choose life

Lately I've started to wonder if my life is too dangerous. I mean, I've managed to steer clear of such dangers as gang violence and crocodile wrestling, but I'm still not sure.\nThe other night I was flipping through the channels when I got stuck on a show called "World's Most Wild Videos Caught on Tape" (or something like that). As it turns out, it was a marathon, which is a dangerous thing on a weekend with nothing to do. Needless to say, it led to a couple hours of must-see TV, reacting with equal amounts of awe and horror.\nI woke up the next morning still thinking about the stuff I had seen and decided it would be a good idea to come up with a few basic ground rules to try to ensure a longer, happier, safer life. \nFirst I decided I should never race anything. Boats, airplanes, cars, motorbikes, etc. I'd say 80 percent of the videos were accidents involving a horrific crash between the aforementioned vehicles. Boats flipped over in the water, airplanes sliced each other in half, cars careened out of control and motorbikes crashed into crowds of people.\nAs I sat there, watching crash after crash, I thanked God that I learned this lesson from the safety of my own couch and vowed, from that moment on, to stop my illegal street racing before it was too late. Then I remembered, that wasn't me, it was Paul Walker in "The Fast and the Furious." Either way, it was a good revelation.\nAnother new rule for my life is not to get anywhere near an animal that could prove to be dangerous. Now, you may be wondering what I classify as a "dangerous animal." If it can outrun me, corner me or has some sort of sharp claws or teeth that could impale me, it's dangerous enough to be avoided. I suppose using that definition, I'll also be keeping a good amount of distance between me and a lot of the sorority girls on campus, but that's a topic for another column.\nRule No. 3 for my new, safe life is not to jump off tall things. It seems simple enough, but people always seem genuinely surprised when a rubber band or piece of cloth doesn't stop a falling person from dying. Call me crazy, but I'm always shocked when a parachute or bungee cord manages to keep the person alive.\nNow, I realize there's always the possibility I'll get hit by a car tomorrow or have some random thing fall out of a window onto me (think Wile E. Coyote) but I'm not going to turn into one of those people who justify reckless living with random statistics. \nFor example, no, I don't think I'll jump off of that cliff wearing a backpack and a sheet even though my odds of dying while riding in a bus sometime in my life are one in 86,628. \nBut you have fun, and I'll make sure to take lots of pictures for you.