Realistically, I’d say my worst in recent memory was nearly getting smoked by a red light runner at some stroad intersection. Only thing that saved me was my own incompetence; I believe I was dicking around on my phone waiting for my turn at the light, and that hesitation delayed me just enough to not get wrecked.
The one I’m more likely to tell people in a casual conversation is nearly accepting a job as a professional Salesforce consultant.
My ex.
A bit too late to dodge
Came to say “ex” too. We split when engaged and before married, so yes, bullet dodged. We went our own ways before legal/financial/possible children complicated things.
That makes sense! Good on you
Bullet Bill on Mario Kart
Possible bullet: May get made redundant rather than having to quit and find somewhere else - may get an easier out than just quitting.
Riding a motor scooter through an intersection, I hear a giant crash behind me.
Turn around and I see a Jeep on its side in the lane I had turned from.
If I had been about 2 seconds slower, I wouldn’t be here to tell this story.
Oh yeah, Jeeps do that.
“It’s a Jeep thing; you wouldn’t understand”
9/11 happened a couple weeks after my family and I got back to California from vacation at Disney World and it always felt like we dodged possibly being on a hijacked flight.
This is overly dramatic. It’s not like you were on the same flight number, but the day before.
Shortly after getting my driver’s license, I stupidly merged onto a road with a 40 mph speed limit without looking left.
A car was coming right towards my driver’s side door. The driver of the other car made their brakes squeal (this was before ABS). Right before they would have hit me and probably killed me (this was before airbags), they released their brakes, swerved around me, and kept going.
It was some really impressive driving, and it likely saved my life.
A firework fired at my face
As kids we were out in the country setting off fireworks, I launched a bottle rocket. Instead of it going up, it took off did a 90° turn and went horizontal. Went inside their garage. It landed in the case of all the other fireworks.
I’m not sure what the odds were of that firework setting off other fireworks. But it definitely made us hit the ground.
Almost like Bart did in that episode in china town with the “Chinese Fire Drill”.
I pulled a Neo matrix move like where he dodged the bullets on the roof. I had to sit for about 20 mins to get the adrenaline rush to subside.
As an EU immigrant, left the UK after the Leave vote but before Brexit and Covid.
It’s not a bullet but more like a whole lot of bullets.
Mind you, most of it was entirely predictable back then.
Can you elaborate on some of the bullets dodged? Not from that part of the world and I’ve only heard of the economic ramifications. I’d be curious to hear about it in greater detail, if you have the time!
The country moved to the far-right, the Industry I was working in - Finance - lost 40,000 jobs, Britain got general Economic stagnation worse than the EU, the value of the British Pound fell significantly against the Euro after the vote (fortunatelly I moved all my savings out of Pound-denominated assets evern before the Leave vote, so I personally was alright) all of the sudden as an EU immigrant you became a second class citizen with lots of extra hassle for living there (inside the EU, EU immigrants have the same rights as the locals, so when Britain left, they lost that), significant decay and problems with their National Health Service, really bad mishandling of COVID (especially in the beginning) and so on.
In some ways the place turned into a mini Trump’s-America, only with the extra nastiness of already being very classist country with very low social mobility from the start and a heavy “know your place” mindset - which is extra hard for immigrants because Britons see themselves as superior to all foreigners but Americans, so “Immigrant” is the lowest “social class” for them - and without the upsides that American has (mainly space and scale, natural resources and at least in some places good weather).
Mind you, most of those things are trends predating Brexit which were heavilly accelerated by it.
I moved to UK after school to get a university degree. Graduated in 2014, and despite having multiple interviews, had to move back home due to not being able to land a job. Eventually got employed elsewhere, and boy did it turn out pretty well compared to what would have happened if I stayed.
High school girlfriend was a bit intense and told me she wanted me to marry her and that she wanted children. I was 16 at the time. I was terrified by that, because you know, 16, and she got mad at my nervousness. She dumped me a week later and wouldn’t you know it, married less than a year out of high school with now 3 kids.
I went on to get my degree, move far far away, get a much better job and a much better partner. I think back to who I would have been if removed me had let myself be pressured into that. Small town, working at the gas station or pizza joint, supporting 3 kids…
God, I feel this. One of my uni girlriends was similar. I was attracted to bad women or women with problems, lol. Then I fell in love with a really nice guy who was like, the polar opposite of everyone I had dated prior. Fast forward years later, and we’re married and finally starting to think about having kids. Feels closer to the right time :)
I’m guessing .30_06 or .308, but I never saw the shooter. Just heard the zip of the bullet and then the gun.
Growing up in the middle of nowhere was an experience.
I was driving home from an event late at night on a highway. It was warm and my AC wasn’t working, and my eyes felt heavy. My blinks kept getting longer until I realized my eyes had been closed too long. I realized I was falling asleep at 65mph and opened up the windows and managed to wake myself up, but if the road had been any busier I could have killed someone, myself included.
Taken literally, a gang shooting aimed at somebody about 10 feet from me. A friend nearly tackled me and dragged me into the bar I was standing in front of.
having kids. If I had established myself a bit earlier financially it might have happened before I saw the signs of where things were going.
I get what you’re saying but I love my kid. He’s the best thing to ever happen to me.
I can understand that but its part of the reason im so glad I don’t have one as I would not like to see them dealing with the world today as far as getting an education and a job and seeing a nice future for themselves.
Yeah, I feel this. I’m in a rough spot right now and the world keeps getting tougher. The idea of bringing someone into this suffering seems cruel to me
Well and when you age you can’t help but lean on your children who just can’t handle the load. its just not an option without kids which is good. I would rather take the suffering than feel I am dropping it on my kids. How aweful it would be to see their suffering, almost worse is they were the best of us and did so well but could achieve so little due to circumstances. If I had kids I certainly would not have been able to help them pay for college. I mean my parents could not but my college loans were like a very nice car loan not like today where its a mortgage.
