Runs in the family 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
Unfortunately for me, I come from a family with a long history of being prone to random bouts of stupidity and/or terrible luck. Despite the pressures of natural selection, no one has yet to remove themselves from the gene pool and most have already reproduced -- creating children just as accident prone as the rest of the adults. Let me relate to you the accidents touted at a recent family gathering:
Much of my family come from the Midwest where it is common practice to burn trash and yard clippings. My grandparents owned a 10-acre plot of land, so understandingly the lawn clippings usually take the form of a large bonfire when lit. So my grandfather, uncle, and young niece go out to set ablaze the year's collection of dead foliage. My grandfather doused the large pile of debris with kerosene, including a very large, still green bush and offered to let my niece light the fire. My uncle, non-to pleased with his eldest (yet young) daughter touting a large propane torch, nevertheless allowed his daughter to ignite the pile. Unfortunately, due to her timidness, the relative calmness of the warm late-summer afternoon, and the unfortunate choice of deciding to start the fire in the large leafy bush, an impressive amount of kerosene fumes managed to collect before she was able to start the blaze and the predictable happened: a loud report, a fair-sized fireball, a relatively small degree of panic and some minor burns and abrasions.
During this same family gathering, I managed to incur significant amounts of bodily harm to myself, at the rate of one accident a day and a serious accident every 2 days, ranging from slicing my hand open twice in 20 minutes with a chisel to dropping a 100-lb bench grinder on my heals, cutting them to the bone. My crowning achievement, however, almost took my head off.
My grandfather and my uncles had, the night before, put on an impressive display of pyrotechnics. My younger nieces and nephews were then instructed to collect all the spent wrappings and cardboard shells and place them into an old oil drum for burning. Unfortunately, someone also dumped a lot of fresh grass clippings into the bin, and it fell onto me that eve to burn the trash. After a frustrating 15 minutes of unsuccessfully trying to start the fire, a small flame started smoldering and as I leaned over the can to blow on the embers, I heard an all-too-familiar sizzling sound followed by a flash of light. As I recoiled, several-not-so-spent fireworks went off in the oil drum. One actually flew into my mouth during my recoil, bounced off my molars, somehow snagged my glasses and burned a path through the hair on the left side of my head before detonating a scant 5 feet above my head.
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One of my uncles is an Army Ranger, but was doing some sort of officer exchange program with the Navy and was out at sea on a ship. The rocking of the boat bothered him and he had some difficulty sleeping, so when they went to port in Japan, he bought a Japanese-style hammock and strung it up with parachute cords wrapped around a board placed between some pipes in the ceiling. He drifted peacefully to sleep, no longer bothered by the rolling of the ship, only to awake to a loud thumping sound. Confused, he opened his eyes and discovered himself on the ground (the thump was him hitting the floor). He managed to look up in time to see the plank of wood hurtling straight down at him, and struck him squarely in the head. It turns out the the swaying of the hammock managed to fray through the parashoot cords to the point where they snapped, which deposited him on the floor and caused a recoil that unbalanced the board, subsequently sending it on a path straight for his head.
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A young nephew of mine, while his father was stationed in Japan, wanted to elude my aunt because he didn't want to go to the doctor (maybe dentist, I don't remember). So he folded himself up and hid himself in the washing machine and promptly got stuck. By the time my aunt found him, he was having difficulty breathing and was wedged in so tight extracting him proved impossible, even after smearing him with butter. Eventually the Japanese fire department had to come out to rescue him (we've gone international!).
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On a camping trip, a nephew was charged with lighting the small propane stove. Unfortunately it was rather windy and it was beyond his ability to keep the match lit then open the gas valve. So instead, he huddled with his back to the wind, opened the valve, and struck several matches until one stayed lit long enough to get it to the propane stream. The resultant fireball engulfed said nephew's head and shot 5 feet into the air. Amazingly, only slightly crispy hair, singed glasses, and a wounded pride were the only injuries suffered from the mishap.
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To illustrate my belief that my family is plagued by bad luck instead of stupidity, I'll leave with this final story (although there is a treasure trove of stories left).
It had been a terrible day, I'd gotten back a barely-passing grade on a midterm, a roller blade wheel had come loose while crossing a busy intersection (causing a fair degree of road rash and the loss of another pair of pants), the water-heater's pilot light had gone out sometime during the day and all the water was frigid, and my roommate was harassing me about some dishes I'd left out from the night before.
I thought back on what my mother used to tell me: "nothing can happen to you in bed." So, despite it being 2pm, I climbed into bed after my cold shower and promptly and blissfully lost consciousness. It was relatively warm day, so my window was open (my bed being in front of the window). Before long I was awakened to an odd thumping noise. As I struggled upright, my window screen came crashing into my lap, along with a large fuzzy object. I put my hands up in sleep-deprived attempt to ward off whatever it was that just crashed through my window. In return for my efforts, I received 2 rather deep gashes in my palms from the claws of a rather frightened and confused neighborhood cat (though probably not as surprised and confused as myself).
As it turns out, the cat had leapt down into our backyard in chase of some birds. Walls of the backyard were all in excess of 10 feet tall, being comprised of the walls of the surrounding houses and the cat became rather trapped in the yard. Apparently this particular cat was trying to develop a way out of the yard by jumping as high as it could up the backyard screen door and then launching itself upwards to the top of the roof. Failing at using the screen door (the mysterious thumping I had heard), it tried to use my screen window. Unfortunately for the cat (and me), it came crashing through since the glass was open, claws fully extended and into my waiting lap.
Therefore I submit, that instead of stupid genes, my family is cursed with bad-luck-genes. I would hope that you all would agree ^_^
If you take family verification (or in the case of the cat, roommate verification), all the above stories can be 'proved' true. Submitted on 01/18/02
Submitted by:
P Wan
Reference:
personal
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