Is this a good day to die?

You can tell the sort of mood I'm in; no actually I'm not depressed, just reflective. And my reflections take me down this path, wondering if I'm lucky or unlucky. I feel that the universe has had a number of attempts at ending my existence (unlucky) but I've survived them (lucky). I wonder if you have ever had similar thoughts?

Here is the chronology:

2 years: my devoted but demented mother used to rub Vicks on my chest when I was little. She sometimes gave me a little to taste (why mum?). When I was left alone with the jar, I ate the entire contents. Severity unknown, but I turned blue so that suggests thoracic or cardiac distress.

4 years: I am reminded by my daughter (see comment 2) of the following. On board ship, passage from India, I was sucking on a boiled sweet. For some reason I inhaled it and it completely blocked my trachea. So I probably had 30 seconds of consciousness ahead of me and 3 minutes to live. I remember running somewhere, anywhere, and ran slap bang into my mother's legs. In a rare display of comprehension and intelligence she grabbed me by the ankles and shook. The sweet popped out. Oh, the freedom to breathe; I remember it still. Threat level, severe.

14 years: Forgot this one, first time through. There was a cobra at the side of the path; I didn't see it and walked past. It struck out at me; its head hit the ground with an audible thud just behind my ankle. The venom is a neurotoxin, and a full dose will kill about 75% of its victims. It gave me a bit of an adrenalin high, but I always liked snakes and still do. Threat level, moderate.

18 years: was doing geological exploration. I and four others were invited down a small platinum mine. It was about 4pm. We were told to get out before 5 because some blasting was scheduled and we would be asphyxiated if we didn't. We descended in a tiny cage, three in it, and two standing on top (yes, Health and Safety was but a gleam in its mother's eye in those days). We had a poke around and got back into or onto the cage to go back up, just before 5pm. Our cage went up about a foot and stopped. Then the cable slowly unwound. I was in the cage and the unwinding meant that we were now below the tunnel level and could not open the cage door anymore. Hmmm. I looked down. The beam from my miner's helmet reflected back at me, from just a few feet down. Fuck. The mine was flooded below our level, and we were still unwinding. And we began to smell cordite. Double fuck. Then we realised why we had stopped. The mine had it's own generator, and it had shut down at 5pm, no one remembering, apparently, that we were still down there. Triple fuck. But, hooray, at 5 past, someone did remember we were down there and they re-started the generator. Threat level, severe.

18 years: Same job actually, front wheel detached from my vehicle which turned over. No seat belts in those days, several bad injuries. Threat level, moderate.

22 years: Another rollover, not driving this time, various injuries including fractured skull, broken femur, and a lost eye. But not me. Threat level, moderate.

23 years: Kidney operation to correct a narrowing of the ureter. Operated on by two arseholes. Yes, really, I kid you not. One was struck off the register for drinking on the job (almost certainly the case with me), the other later committed suicide just before his nieces blew the whistle on his pedophilia. Anyway, to cut the long hacking short, they managed to put a scalpel up through my diaphragm so my lung collapsed - but didn't notice, of course. Luckily some random doctor walking through recovery saw how blue I was and did the necessary. But I lost the kidney. Threat level, severe.

49 years: Flying incident. My flying buddy checked the fuel and declared it OK. I should have but didn't. One tank gave out, switched over, then the other went dry. It goes very quiet when you run out of fuel at 3,000 feet. The nearest airfield was withing gliding distance; so glided in and did a good landing. Threat level, moderate.

52 years: More flying. Landed on an airstrip having descended through cloud at freezing temperatures. I had picked up ice under the wings, but my pre-takeoff inspection did not show this. Now you may not know it, but tiny amounts of freezing, even frost itself, will completely change the aerodynamics of an aircraft. Started the takeoff roll, and the effing thing would not lift. Planes are not like cars. At a certain point, and I was beyond it, you have to commit to takeoff. You really can't stop in the distance anymore. So faster and faster, less and less airfield, the sheep in front of me shitting themselves more and more (as I nearly was) when I dragged the bloody thing into the air. I didn't hit any sheep, but I reckon I sheared a few. It stayed about 10 feet up and just wouldn't go higher until there was enough airspeed to shed the ice. Threat level, bloody awful.

57 years: Took the train from London to Cambridge, well it should have been Cambridge, but it didn't get further than Potters Bar. Yes, *the* Potters Bar, the rail accident that killed 7 and injured 80. I walked away. Threat level, severe.

I think that's about it. Have a good day.