The brains carried around in the human skull are basically wired to avoid unpleasant thoughts, but even the most emotionally stable among us cannot avoid intermittent cognition of the 9,000 things that can kill us at any moment, which for most people does not even include the Pirates.
If you’re like me, and God help ya, your mind may have veered in recent days into a dark area, owing to the sudden addition or exacerbation of at least five potential lethalities: monkeypox, Lone Star ticks, Detroit Airport moths, taking a walk and, ever more dangerously, living in a country with more guns than people.
Without objection, or even with, I’ll take them in order:
