Hey there, folks!
The piece I'm bringing you today is from his book entitled
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away. It's a collection of articles he wrote, and this one tickled me so much when I reread it a few days ago that I decided I should definitely share it. Please note that all of the article is in no way my own work and solely the property of Bill Bryson. Enjoy!
"Well, Doctor, I was just trying to lie down..."
By Bill Bryson
Here's a fact for you: According to the latest Statistical Abstract of the United States, every year more than 400,000 Americans suffer injuries involving beds, mattresses, or pillows. Think about that for a minute. That is almost 2,000 bed, mattress, or pillow injuries a day. In the time it takes you to read this article, four of my fellow citizens will somehow manage to be wounded by their bedding.
My point in raising this is not to suggest that we are somehow more inept than the rest of the world when it comes to lying down for the night (though clearly there are thousands of us who could do with additional practice), but rather to observe that there is scarcely a statistic to do with this vast and scattered nation that doesn't in some way give one pause.
I had this brought home to me the other day when I was in the local library looking up something else altogether in the aforesaid Abstract and happened across "Table No. 206: Injuries Associated with Consumer Products." I have seldom passed a more diverting half hour.
Consider this intriguing fact: Almost 50,000 people in the United States are injured each year by pencils, pens, and other desk accessories. How do they do it? I have spent many long hours seated at desks where I would have greeted almost any kind of injury as a welcome diversion, but never once have I come close to achieving actual bodily harm.
So I ask again: How do they do it? These are, bear in mind, injuries severe enough to arrant a trip to an emergency room. Putting a staple in the tip of your index finger (which I have done quite a lot, sometimes only semi-accidentally) doesn't count. I am looking around my desk now and unless I put my head in the laser printer or stab myself with the scissors I cannot see a single source of potential harm within ten feet.
But then that's the thing about household injuries if Table No. 206 is any guide--they can come at you from almost anywhere. Consider this one. In 1992 (the latest year for which figures are available) more than 400,000 people in the United States were injured by chairs, sofas, and sofa beds. What are we to make of this? Does it tell us something trenchant about the design of modern furniture or merely that we have become exceptionally careless sitters? What is certain is that the problem is worsening. The number of chair, sofa, and sofa bed injuries showed an increase of 30,000 over the previous year, which is quite a worrying trend even for those of us who are frankly fearless with regard to soft furnishings. (That may, of course, be the nub of the problem--overconfidence.)
Predictably, "stairs, ramps, and landings" was the most lively category, with almost two million startled victims, but in other respects dangerous objects were far more benign than their reputations might lead you to predict. More people were injured by sound-recording equipment (46,022) than by skateboards (44,068), trampolines (43,655), or even razors and razor blades (43,365). A mere 16,670 overexuberant choppers ended up injured by hatchets and axes, and even saws and chainsaws claimed a relatively modest 38,692 victims.
Paper money and coins (30,274) claimed nearly as many victims as did scissors (34,062). I can just about conceive of how you might swallow a dime and then wish you hadn't ("You guys want to see a neat trick?"), but I cannot for the life of me construct hypothetical circumstances involving folding money and a subsequent trip to the E.R. It would be interesting to meet some of these people.
I would also welcome a meeting with almost any of the 263,000 people injured by ceilings, walls, and inside panels. I can't imagine being hurt by a ceiling and not having a story worth hearing. Likewise, I could find time for any of the 31,000 people injured by their "grooming devices."
But the people I would really like to meet are the 142,000 hapless souls who received emergency room treatment for injuries inflicted by their clothing. What can they be suffering from? Compound pajama fracture? Sweatpants hematoma? I am powerless to speculate.
I have a friend who is an orthopedic surgeon, and he told me the other day that one of the incidental occupational hazards of his job is that you get a skewed sense of everyday risks since you are constantly repairing people who have come a cropper in unlikely and unpredictable ways. (Only that day he had treated a man who had had a moose come through the windshield of his car, to the consternation of both.) Suddenly, thanks to Table No. 206, I began to see what he meant.
Interestingly, what had brought me to the Statistical Abstract in the first place was the wish to look up crime figures for the state of New Hampshire, where I now live. I had heard that it is one of the safest places in America, and indeed the Abstract bore this out. There were just four murders in the state in the latest reporting year--compared with over 23,000 for the country as a whole--and very little serious crime.
All that this means, of course, is that statistically in New Hampshire I am far more likely to be hurt by my ceiling or underpants--to cite just two potentially lethal examples--than by a stranger, and, frankly, I don't find that comforting at all.
Hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you. Look up more of Bryson's work to further enjoy his humorous (but educational) style.
Have a great night and I'll see you back here tomorrow!
♥ Marlee
