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Health & Fitness

Duck!

Well, it happened again last week. Something falling from the sky narrowly missed dropping on my head.

In this case, it was debris from an old satellite. You may think I was worried over nothing, given that most of it fell into Atlantic Ocean between South America and Antarctica. But let me remind you that it was the Atlantic Ocean, which is by far the nearest ocean to Stamford.

I’m always concerned about sudden death arriving from above, in the form of space junk, meteors, asteroids, or deceased cicadas. I’m here to tell you that nary a day goes by without a news report about some disaster dropping from the skies, although many a day goes by without me using the word "nary."

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Here now are a few of the reports of items which have befallen humanity since just the beginning of summer, and could fall on me at any moment:

1. Plummeting sharks.
I’ve never been a fan of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, but evidently this year they ran a documentary called "Sharknado" which examined the very real possibility of every conceivable species of shark (including great white, hammerhead, and loan) being swept out of the sea by a storm and then raining down on the population of greater Los Angeles, their mouths open and pointed down, so that they can eat people as they fall. This is even more of a calamity than you might imagine, since the actress Tara Reid manages to survive.

Inexplicably, this show captured the public’s imagination, or at least that segment of the public who lives on Twitter. So much so, in fact, that it played in actual theaters where it sold out, and a sequel is planned wherein sharks fall on New York, devouring every bit actor who has ever appeared on Law & Order. I don’t think they’ll fall up here in the Connecticut suburbs, but I’m going to keep an eye out for Shark Preparedness Warnings ("Do not under any circumstances sprinkle your lawn with chum.") just in case.

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(WAIT–THIS JUST IN: I’ve been informed that Sharknado was not part of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week but, rather, an entirely fictional movie broadcast by SyFy. The Discovery Channel is a scientific and educational channel which would never air fake, sensational, scary programming, except for Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives, a "documentary" in which people are terrorized by a prehistoric shark which, in reality, does not live.)

2. Cow-Mutilating Aliens.
Lynn Mitchell, a rancher in Mitchell County, Mo., found, over a period of two years, three of her cows with various body parts missing, including tongues, udders and reproductive organs. This led her quite naturally to the obvious conclusion that aliens have been absconding with cow appendages.

Although the local TV station reports that police are "not ruling out the possibility of aliens" (really–they reported that), I personally believe that there is a much more logical explanation, such as criminals stealing the udders and reproductive organs and then removing the cows’ tongues to silence them. But the mystery has deepened; evidence closely resembling the tongue of one of Ms. Mitchell’s cows has shown up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn on a deli counter. This understandably has the Mitchell County police puzzled.

Although I suspect that this dairy dismemberment is probably the work of natural predators, I will take precautions to protect my livestock from aliens. I plan on keeping my dog Toby in at night.

3. Lightning. 
Of course, being struck by a bolt of lightning has always been a concern, since the media is always telling me that it’s so much more likely than winning the lottery.

However, the Centers for Disease Control has reported that American men are six times more likely to be struck by lightning than women, which means that my demise is imminent and that my wife should be playing Power Ball.

I do have one question about this though. Why is this the domain of the Centers for Disease Control? Since when is getting struck by lightning a disease? Is it contagious? Is there an electrical conductor gene that gets passed down through families?

And more importantly, is there a vaccine I can get?

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