Almost...

I was almost a twin. Twins run in the family and mom was told by two doctors that she was pregnant with twins. But mom became ill and had severe pains which she described as a sword fight in her belly, and thus I was won one?

I was almost named Ralph but my next older sister didn't want me to have a dog's name; she really enjoyed the Ruff and Reddy show. Naming me was a little problematic as I had no name for several days. Dad joked about calling me Son #1. Turns out, there was no number two.

I almost passed out in High School when I gave blood for the first time. I for real passed out when struck by a car while roller blading. Given that experience where there was a large gap in time, I'd say I was just light-headed after giving blood but this is about almost. I suppose the almost to go with rollerblading could be that I almost broke bones.

Speaking of which, as a kid, our towing vehicle, which could best be described as Suburan-like, flipped over when the trailer hitch broke. Several passersby stopped, which I guess means they weren't really passersby because they didn't pass-by; anyway, I felt horrible and went to lay down in the grass. One lady was asking mom if everybody was okay and mom said, "Yes." The lady asked, "What about that boy in the grass?" To which mom replied, "Kevin, get up! Somebody is going to think you're hurt." I said "but I am." We almost escaped that accident with no injuries. I had a broken collar bone.

Speaking of accidents, I almost had a doozy of an accident. As a young man of about 20, I had nearly arrived at work one wintery day when an ambulance came up behind me in the middle lane--one lane to the right of me. I stayed put. However, so did the person in the middle lane ahead of me. When they realized the ambulance was there, they shifted lanes but, the ambulance driver's patience being exhausted, changed lanes as well. They did this at least twice and the snow was knocked off the bumper of the car in front. The roads were a bit slick and this was in a long slow curve. It seemed like a good idea to back off from this so I put my foot on the brake pedal--must've been too hard. Next thing I know my car is spinning and when it stopped I was parallel to and just inches from the concrete median. I don't know how I managed not to strike another vehicle or how the ambulance got behind me. I almost couldn't get my hands to stop shaking enough to restart the car. I believe I used 2 hands to turn the key. I was only 3 minutes from work at this point and wouldn't have been late if I hadn't sat in the parking lot for a good 10 minutes waiting to calm down.

One of the times that I moved, I was unpacking my dishes onto a flattened, heavy cardboard box that was resting on a small table--this small table top was much smaller than I realized. As I unwrapped and stacked, the carboard became unbalance and my unbreakable Corelle sets crashed to the floor. About half the bowls, a couple small plates and a few dinner plates broke when it all landed. I almost broke my entire set of dishes.

I almost forgot about this blog post.