Wow.  My life really is full of surprises.  Not always the kind that might comically kill me, but those are definitely present.

Hence The Red Shirt Diaries…

The specific surprise on my mind this morning is just how many of those potential humorous deaths I seem to barely avoid.

Seriously.

I really thought – and procrastinated, obviously, because I’ve got plenty of time – that TRSD11 would be The Flesh Eating Bacteria.  This morning had other ideas, as I  just barely survived my morning shower and toast.

Because good hygiene and a reasonable diet…what killers.  

I was grumbling about how, after turning on the AC yesterday, my condo was still 71 degrees when I woke up.  The grumble in question was more of a conversation with Myrtle as I turned on the shower, “What do you think?  I had the blankets on all night and didn’t feel hot…”

She wasn’t feeling chat-ty this morning.  But it’s true…when the heat is running, I feel comfortable at 70 degrees.  This morning, I was trying to figure out if I felt cold at 71.  Since Myrtle wasn’t holding up her end of the convo, I stepped onto the shower.

…nearly dying as I hopped backward to get away from the stream of steam shooting out of the shower head and cascading over my body.

Ok, it wasn’t steam, per se, but it was about five degrees cooler than lava and I was mentally picturing my body vaporizing as I reached to turn down the water.  I realized in doing so that it was already set a little cooler than normal, I have a variable handle on my shower that is oriented with hot on the left of the lever and cold on the right.  I usually have it set at about 11:00.  This morning it was at 12:00 and still too hot.  I gradually adjusted it toward the right as my body mentally continued to blister and dissolve.  I finally got to a tolerable level of pain at the 2:00 position and made the best of it as I tried to figure out what was happening.

I decided that it was the AC.  Not the same type of weird mind trick like me being hot at 70 when the AC is on and cold at 70 when the heat is on.  

Legit weird.

My furnace heats my home by running hot water from the water heater somehow – the guy explained it to me, but I only cared that my house was warm.  All I can figure is that with the heat off, the water in the water heater remains hotter.

Good to know…I’m sure that bastard that installed it didn’t mention that little tidbit.

Anyway, having survived the shower, I threw on some pants and went to the kitchen to make toast.  Little did I know that my morning of misfortune was just getting warmed up.

Apparently, sleeping with the AC on had dried out my sinuses and the steam from the molten shower had perked them up a bit.  

The result:  a sneezing fit while I waited for my bread slices to toast.

My mother used to freak out about my sneezes when I was a child.  Apparently, I was such a control freak as a child <gasp> that I held my sneezes in instead of letting them out.  

You know me and germs.

Anyhoo…several trips to the doctor and a remedial sneezing class at the junior college later and nothing changed.  

My poor mother.

I still do it.  No sneeze splatter from control freak/germiphobe Xtopher!  I’ve thrown out my back holding in sneezes, that’s the result of trying to keep a sneeze traveling at 100 mph – seriously, check WebMD – from leaving your body.

My toast pops out and I’m buttering it.  One final sneeze creeping up on me.  Tensing every muscle in my body to control the uncontrollable, I keep my sneeze to the minor convulsion I’m accustomed to…although, I’m not accustomed to doing it while also holding a buttery knife.

I almost stabbed myself through my eye.

I swear, it’s like Agatha Christie took a hit of opium and then started writing.  The result was my life story.  Well, then end of it, anyway.