I had to bite my lip a little bit this last week. My daughter, Amber, decided it was time for her nine-year-old and five-year-old daughters to have their ears pierced. I did a little reading and someone, someplace, said the average age for little girls to get their ears pierced in the United States is age seven.
I kept quiet for a number of reasons. The two most important were that it was none of my business, and my daughter and son in law are fully, capable, functioning adults and would have done what they wanted too anyway.
It’s been about a week now and neither of them have been hospitalized with a life-threatening infection. By the way, two different sources said that 80-90% of American women have their ears pierced and that in the last five years, about half of those who get piercings are male.
Getting pierced, punctured, tattooed, or further probed with sharp objects isn’t on my bucket list. As I approach 70, I am worried that my time of getting cut into may be done by doctors and I’m not to fond of that idea either.
Skydiving, hang gliding, and going in a hot air balloon aren’t on my list of things I’d like to do before I die. I’m fairly certain that if I launch myself out of a perfectly good airplane, leap off a cliff with some wings attached to me or take off in a balloon above the earth, subject to the wind and power lines, I will probably die. Even if the flight goes OK, I’m not sure my heart will beat properly or at all.
I enjoy flying in a regular airplane even though about 345 people die annually in airplane accidents. That still seems safer than the 100 deaths a year due to parachuting, or even the four fatalities a year from hang gliding.
I’m even a little jumpy about getting in my car and driving. I won’t regale you with my younger years’ driving experiences, but for some reason I feel pretty vulnerable now days when I go out on the roads. I don’t want to be one of the 90 Americans who die in car wrecks every day and I’m certainly not as confident as I used to be.
I’ve owned two motorcycles in my life and I’m also not sure I’d ever get on one of those again either. H-mm-m.
You’ll probably never see me eating raw sushi. In my mind, the 128,000 people who are hospitalized every year in the United States with food poisoning, the 3,000 or so that die and the word “sushi” are connected. I didn’t say “bucket lists” have to be rationale.
I enjoy eating out but find, as I get wiser (or is it older?), my favorite meals are the ones Lori makes. She puts professional chefs to shame and I also know how conscious of cleanliness she is.
I’m sure I have no desire to fight in a professional boxing or cage fighting match. It’s estimated that, between 1890 and 2011, about 1,604 boxers have died as a result of injuries they received in a boxing match.
I’ve also eliminated mountain biking (120 deaths per year), and scuba diving (100 deaths per year) . I have promised my wife I will try skiing again (39.2 deaths per year) because I’m pretty sure you won’t die on the bunny slope. I’m also game for snorkeling in areas where I can stand up, since I can’t swim.
I’ve also ruled out any future skinny dipping. That, however, has nothing to do with fear of death.
I guess the truth of the matter is we all have an appointed time by God and everyone dies from something. Maybe I will get my ears pierced?