Johnson & Johnson

The room we had on the cruise ship was right at, if not just below, the water line of the ship.  We could clearly hear the waves crashing against the side of the hull.  It made us very aware of the ocean.

Mentally I was imagining all of the odd and creepy creatures living just on the other side of the wall; the wall that in this case served as our headboard.  Quickly dropping off to sleep was not going to be easy.

One of the things I chose to think about in order to get my mind off of the massive ocean being just inches from my pillow was just how much money we had saved up to put ourselves in this situation. Turns out those thoughts weren’t comforting either.  The more I try to get my mind off of what makes me nervous the more I seem to come up with things that are worse.

         

I tend to do the same thing when I have to fly someplace.  Sitting on a plane I immediately run down a mental checklist of everything that has to go absolutely right for the plane to not only get off the ground but to remain in the air throughout the entire flight.

The airplane mechanic installing the replacement part on the engine has to make sure he is using the right part, the part itself needs to not be defective, he needs to use the right amount of torque when tightening the nuts and bolts holding the thing in place; the inspector coming along behind him needs to check it, and not loosen it in the process, and also check to see that the mechanic’s elbow didn’t accidentally knock something else out of whack while he was working.

The pilot and crew need to be physically and mentally fit; each and every passenger needs to not be a lunatic and whatever they have brought in their luggage needs to not react violently to changes in pressure.

The list goes on and on and in much more detail than I’ve mentioned here.  Millions of things need to be completely right for everything to work as it should. 

            It isn’t that I believe my destiny is to fall from the sky or go down with a sinking cruise ship, but I do think when my end does come it will be from something really stupid; something simple and obviously unforeseen. 

 

Hopefully not this.

        For this to go perfectly - the banana growers as well as the shoe manufacturers have to, well wait, before we start there, the farms where the cows were raised - providing the leather for the shoes...

       No, we need to start with the janitor who polishes the floor and we definitely need to look at the chemicals that went into his choice of floor wax.

       Did the chemist test Zylophoamamate 18 against banana oil,
and if so - under what amount of pressure?  Was it an evenly applied pressure or a sliding pressure?

       If he used a squishometer - was it calibrated?