TheReview Wednesday, August 11,1990 — All )pinion A daring adventure or nothing Don*t get yourself in a nice, safe, comfortable Situation where you’re afraid or unable to take risks, is Tom Robbins’ advice to young wmiters. Serious writers, he says, take risks) For some writers, a nice, safe, comfortable Situation is risky enough. Take the risk of getting out of bed in the morning. If I?m to believe Ripley’s: Believe it or Not, beds caused 77,581 injuries last year and pillows another 445. So even before I toss the comforter back, [reach for the bedside light. According to Ripley’s this could be my first (and last) mistake of the day. Faulty wiring extinguishes 500 people annually. Having made it into my dressing gown without bodily harm or electrocution, I hesitate outside the bathroom. I’m about to enter a room where more people drown in bathtubs than in any other room of the house. But life is either a daring adventure or nothing, so I steell my nerves to get through the door One out of every 360) families suffers a door-related injury: During breakfast I read the list of ingredients on my box of Natural Life cereal as I listen to the CBE for news of today’s carcinogen. It’s Satur- day, and the “greatest risk of cancer is from natural elements in food itself.” I scrape my breakfast into our toxic- wastebasket, and flip the switch on the main - power breaker; it’s my husband’s turn to guard the baby. After barmicading the stairs, the food cupboards and the bathroom, I clothe her in Flame Retardant Material Only, and’ head for the University library. Driving the highway is by far the biggest risk. One in four Canadians has been injured in a car accident. Mondays and Tuesdays are the safest ' days on the road, but if youre driving on Saturday it’s most important to wear clean underwear. Today I’m one of the chosen ones who reaches her destination. I choose my books and hand the librarian my Fee-Paying Extra-Mural Borrowing Card. The librarian looks filustered: she can’t remember which of the two date-stamps she’s supposed to use. Finally she makes a wild guess and picks the one closest to hand. ~ What would life be without risk?” she sighs. T tell' her she’s risking her life just being at ® work, that millions of disabling accidents occur in the workplace every year. She could be hit by a falling object or contract asbestosis in the time it takes her to stamp my books Due Back Tuesday. Once more there’s the parking lot to reconoitre. But even if I do reach my car (the odds of my. being run over by a bus are as good as my chances of appearing on The Tonight Show — one in 490,000) there’s the drive home. It’s still early — prime accident time is between 10'p.m. and 2 a.m. — but it’s raining so I brake at every green light I hit. Near the airport I brake for a hitchhiker, my sodden next-door neighbor’s son. I never pick up strangers these days unless I recognize them — it’s too risky. Inevitably they ask, “Mind if I smoke?” The number of premature deaths due to smok- ing is the equivalent of 920 fully loaded 747 jumbo jets crashing every year. One is coming in for a landing right now as my neighbor’s son reaches into his knapsack for a carton of Lucky Strikes. “It’s not that I mind smoke,” I assure him, rolling down my window as he strikes his first match, “the fresh air will do me good.” At least I hope it will do me good. Air pollution, I have to remind myself, took 20,000 lives last year in the East. I drop my neighbor’s son outside the tobaccon- ist's where I begrudgingly purchase my hus- band’s lottery ticket. It’s not the expenditure of a hard-earned Loonie (he reimburses me) that bothers me; in my books the chance of winning more money than I°d need to pay off my Visa bill is the biggest risk of all. That night, when the Fisher Price Room Monitor is switched on over the baby’s crib (144 per cent of crib deaths have been prevented by such devices), I unplug the television set, the toaster, and’ every other lightning conductor in the house. Then it’s bed — somewhere safe and comfortable to collapse at the end of the day. Or maybe not; most people, after all, die in bed. I extinguish the light and crawl in beside my. husband who is already dreaming of this week’s Lotto 6/49: His chances of winning with a single ticket? One in five million: It’s not a chance Id’ take. I can’t afford to get myself im a nice, safe, comfortable financial Situation where I’m unwilling to take the kinds of Tisks serious writers take. Simple Simon says: “COME IN FOR THE COLD!” *Iced Tea *Chilled Juices *Ice Cream Floats (Cranberry Cocktail) OPEN Tuesday - Saturday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. 2335 Beacon Plaza Mall 656-5665 FOR YOUR COMPLETE RESIDENTIAL OR COM- MERCIAL EXCAVATING NEEDS. 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