How Are You Not Dead?

“How are you not dead?” the wife said.

At the time, she wasn’t my wife. It was in the getting-to-know-you-phase for the first two members of our budding team. I believe this was at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Seattle. Hey, I never said I was a great date.

I think the tipping point in the conversation was the honest-to-goodness chemical accident when I was eight-years-old.

The chemical accident that left me miraculously unscathed.

Again.

Yet another moment where the Grim Reaper his own bad self apparently looked me right in the eye and said, “Not now, dude.”

“Seriously,” she said. “How are you not dead?”

“I don’t know. But it all makes for a great story.”

Stories. I haz them. Want to know why it’s Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and not Six Degrees of Some Other Random Actor? It’s not because Kevin Bacon has been in a lot of movies (even though he has). It’s not because “Kevin Bacon” rhymes with “separation” (although it does). It’s because Kevin Bacon has been in lot of ensemble casts. JFK, A Few Good Men, Apollo 13. Fertile ground just on those three alone. That’s where all the linkages happen.

Now, Kevin didn’t set out to become a game show punch line. It just kinda happened.

I’ve escaped death and dismemberment. Several times, in several different ways. Sometimes, I haven’t even realized it until after the fact. Like the time I stepped over live electrical cables, blissfully unaware of the several hojillion volts just itching to kill me. “Not now, dude.”

I cheat death. That’s my thing. I never set out to do these things. I never wanted any of them to happen. They just do. And it all makes for a great story.