This idea popped into my head a moment ago… so I am just going to let the crack squirrels that live inside my head run with the idea and see where it takes them… maybe I should apologize in advance.

It started when, in the background, I heard some newscaster on the TV talking about the most recent mass shooting in the United States. And some cynical part of my brain said; “Yeah, us Americans, we sure does love our guns!” ***(I don’t really talk like that, but I was doing a sort of redneck voice in my head, and I thought I would try to convey that)***

Well, the thoughts just sort of began spiraling out of control from that one little notion… you know… like my thoughts tend to do… We love guns, and guns kill a lot of us. We love our cars and the freedom to drive anywhere, and a lot of us die in car wrecks. We love to eat sweets and deep-fried food, and a lot of us die from diabetes and obesity-related complications or just plain poor health.

I started to wonder if this was mostly just an American problem or if it translated internationally, but that might have required actual thought and maybe Googling statistics and it is too early for that nonsense… so I am just sitting at the keyboard and letting the crack squirrels dance on it.

They say… (uh, I mean the ‘they’ people always talk about, not the crack squirrels)… that you are far more likely to be murdered by a family member, someone whom you love and supposedly loves you in return, than by a stranger. That is a horrible thing to contemplate, but it does support my premise… so…

The more I let the crack squirrels dwell on this idea, the more it seems to hold up under scrutiny. If you get eaten by a shark, the odds are it is because you love swimming or surfing… or sharks. That crocodile hunter guy loved nature, so naturally he was stung in the heart by a stingray. Who didn’t see that coming?

Even diseases that kill us can often be traced back to what we love. Skin cancer kills people who love being tan. You could even make the argument that people who die from smoking loved to smoke, but I don’t want to stretch my point too far. I will say that a lot of people who die of unusual diseases loved to travel to exotic places. That is why a lot of those new commercials for medications include a warning like; “Do not take this medication if you live in or travel to places where fungal infections are common”… (Has anybody actually Goggled where those places are, because maybe we shouldn’t be traveling to those places anyway)…

Like many of my ideas that end up as posts, this one seems to be bringing up more questions than it is answering. It is obviously an oversimplified and rambling tract on not a whole lot. I am certain untold numbers of people die each year from things that they hate, or don’t care about in any way. But I like thinking about stuff. I like trying to make you think about stuff. Sometimes these posts generate some interesting conversations in the comments. On the other hand, my stats suck right now, so I doubt many people will even read all this.

Sorry… now the crack squirrels are just whining.