Fearless

I like to think of myself as a fearless person. Someone who will take on any challenge. A person who lets nothing frighten her. Except snakes. And heights. And boats. And pain. And needles. And being without lipstick. And running out of moisturizer for my face. And that patch of sand at the end of my street. And being without a pedicure and manicure. Oh, and being without Coca Cola®. But I don’t obsess about them or think about them on a daily basis, except the lipstick and Coca Cola® thing. And maybe the pedicure.

Anyway, I learned today that there are other things that perhaps I should be afraid of but never even considered as a danger. My growing up home had a fireplace in it, and I was used to men and their obsessions with fire. We used the fireplace for useful things, like adding warmth to the living room when the power was out, and burning all the paper generated on Christmas morning. Outside fires were just as useful. We would burn leaves and twigs and fallen tree limbs that we gathered from the yard and when the fire was just right we might roast a hot dog or flambé’ some marshmallows. And if Daddy wasn’t around we might even toss in an aerosol can just to see it burst into the air like an unguided missile. We were careful to put great distance between us and the fire immediately after tossing the can into the flames. I never considered either the fireplace or the outdoor fires to be a great danger to me unless I was to fall or be pushed into them.

Cory Davis, I believe, was of the same opinion thinking the heating stove in her home to be of no significant danger to her. Cory lives in Sekiu, Washington where I can only assume October brings a lot of cold weather. On this past Sunday, Cory had just stoked her stove when she heard a loud noise and felt something strike her left calf. At first she thought "that was one fast hot coal flying at me." But upon closer inspection she noticed it had not been a hot coal but rather part of a 22 shell that she had put in the stove inside the paper she used for lighting purposes. It seems a box of shells had fallen a few weeks ago and one of the shells remained in the paper she uses for lighting her stove. No big deal. Cory sat down and removed the offending fragment from her leg, only later seeking medical attention. She now gets to tell the story of being shot once in her life. Makes for a great story until she has to answer the question, “who shot you,” and she says, my stove.

I said earlier that I like to think of myself as a fearless person. I still like to think that, but I am learning that thinking and being are two different things. To my previous list of fears I now have to add being shot by a stove. I bow to you Cory, a truly fearless woman. Not only could I not have removed the fragment from my leg, I would have fainted when it first happened and would not have allowed myself to be taken to the hospital without first applying lipstick. I bet that never crossed your mind.