Close call

I have a "to do" list in my house closely approaching the size of a Stephen King novel, and so on Independence Day I decided to tackle a couple of the most immediate ones.

And thus I climbed the roof(s) to clean the gutters and install a gutter gard so I won't have to do this absolutely gross task every few weeks. Can you already see where this is going?

My house has three separate levels of roofs and five gutter lines, so I need one ladder to climb to the first roof, and a second ladder to reach the second level roof.

At the risk of blowing the ending to this story, let me remind you that I've already fallen off this roof once last year, when I was stung by a wasp and lost my balance and managed to fall and somehow not even get a scratch.

Yesterday, as I finished the top roof, and was climbing down to the lower roof, the ladder slipped, and as it did, my legs went in between the ladder steps as ladder and I rolled down the roof. I was able to stop rolling near the edge of the roof, but my lower legs sandwiched between the ladder steps received an immense pressure blow that really F%$&*@ hurt. I sat on the roof top just inhaling the pain and wondering how close death sometimes whizzes by us on a daily basis. Tonite my shin bones have a couple of blood knots on them the size of half a golf ball. I also managed to scrape the top layer of skin off the palm of my hands.

I've been shot at (twice: once in Brooklyn as a teen and once in Lebanon as a Navy officer); I've been in a helicopter crash at sea near Larnaca, Cyprus; I've capsized in a small boat in the Bay of Naples and a second time off Benidorm, Spain; I've fallen off a moving motorcycle in Monterey, California; I've been in a fight with three guys with knives who tried to mug me in a bathroom in Philadelphia; I've been hit by a car (resulting in an eight month stay at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn); and I've been stung by a scorpion in a bed in Virgin Gorda, BVI.

And yet, it's the little, unexpected things like a slipping ladder, that remind you that life should be enjoyed everyday, lest darkness fall at the most unexpected time.