My life is one filled with danger.

Starting a couple of months ago, I realized I was taking my life in my hands every morning when I left my home. There's lots of reasons for this, I'm sure. The world is a perilous place. Healthier, stronger men than me probably die every day. Sickness and famine abound. Wars and terrorist attacks are not unheard of. Crimes of all natures occur. Crocodiles have been known to attack people. But these aren't what worry me when I set foot outside the door (well...with the possible exception of the crocodiles...have you seen a crocodile attack on TV? It quickly rose to the animal I'm the most afraid of, even passing great white sharks, which were high up there after shark week on the discovery channel.) What worries me, as I set foot outside, are giant icicles. Seriously.



This is a picture, taken today, of the door I walk out every day to face the world.

Out side my apartment were some of the largest, deadliest looking icicles known to man. I was literally risking my life every time I moved about a foot outside of the entryway into my apartment. I say was in the past tense, because apparently it got to be serious enough, that the apartment people must have come by and knocked them off. All entrances in the complex suddenly had no icicles one day. So unless they all fell at once, they must have been removed on purpose. And had they all fallen at once just by chance, I'm sure I would have heard about the 10 or so deaths that it would have caused.

Sadly I have no pictures of the door before the icicles were knocked down. This is an artist's (using the word loosely) rendition of what it had looked like.

At first I was glad that my life was safer and I no longer feared death when walking through the doors. But at the same time, I felt an emptiness without the icicles there. That sense of adventure every morning and evening as I wondered "Will this be the day an icicle falls on me and ends my life?" Also, my roommates and I would use the icicles as a show of bravery. Whoever could stand under them the longest was the more courageous. It's intense to know that any second you could die, and you only had to take a step forward or backwards to be safe, but to do so would show cowardice and intelligence, two things we try our best to avoid. It worked out well for deciding who's turn it was to wash the dishes. Whoever moved first had to go up and clean them. Well...maybe we never played these games, but I'm sure we would have started if they hadn't knocked them down. So farewell icicles, now that your gone, I can walk out the door and worry about my lesser fears of war, crime, and crocodiles.