In the United States we have a long list of things of which we have a generally disproportionate level of fear, sometimes bordering on the irrational. Some rather remote things about which we worry:
- Being killed by terrorists
- Catching the bird flu
- Dying from mad cow disease
- Eating that fateful microbe of e.coli served up on a leaf of spinach
- The dreadful dirty bomb
- Being poisoned by a radioactive mist sprayed in a restaurant by a Russian spy
And then of course we have the list of the more imminent possibilities which could start with something like being killed in a car crash. But here is one, remote though it may be, that might keep you awake at night!
Did you realize that 600 Americans died last year by falling out of bed?!* Good lord!
Once, maybe twice, I dreamed I almost fell out of bed in my sleep. It was horrible. I so violently jerked back from the very real sensation of falling out of bed that I woke myself up. I hadn't nearly fallen out of bed at all. I was just dreaming it.
It never occurred to me that one could actually die from falling out of bed! Heavens!
I think we could invent a fall-out-of-bed proof bed for far less than $350,000,000,000.00--the present cost of the war in Iraq. Are the odds of my dying from falling out of bed or by a terrorist attack about the same?
I just don't know...
*Source: Time Magazine: How Americans Are Living Dangerously
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