Roof Remedy

That when you hire a contractor to remove some tree branches that overhang your roof, said contractor falls to his death in the process and his estate sues you for damages. Irony prevails because the entity who ends up paying the claim is the insurance company that requested the branches be removed in the first place. To add insult to their financial injury, the insurance company demanded the branches be removed or they would cancel the same homeowner's policy which in the end was used to pay the dead claimant's estate.

Karma.

Pan Pain

That when you reach for a pot or a pan to cook some spaghetti - on just a random, nondescript evening - the hook on the pot rack catches your sleeve just enough that you lose your balance on the stepladder and tip softly into the island, suffering a little bump to your ribcage.

Believing all is right with the world and you escaped eternal pain, you shake at the pan rack to get your sleeve free, but that only serves to anger the cooking gods who suddenly release all the bolts holding the rack and 471lbs of pots and pans from the ceiling onto your visage.

As the Calphalon catastrophe takes place, you wonder about the craftsmanship of an $8 shirt you got at Kohls and how the button must have been attached with fishing wire. Before you lose consciousness and are crushed to death, you lament dressing for dinner in the first place and make an easily attainable vow never to do so again - easy because you've been removed from the menu of life.

Testing Your Patients

That when in the hospital for some tests, the nurses who tend to you - while very attractive - all seem to have a pact to keep their hands cold so that every time they take your temperature or blood pressure, the chill is so bad that it elevates your heart rate. This in turn makes the doctors think you need to be secreted away to a plastic bubble on a hidden ward somewhere in the hospital where the food is worse than regular hospital food (if that’s possible) and the temperatures are taken via the other end of your body.

Based on the high heart rate, you suddenly find yourself whisked away to a dungeon somewhere in Mississippi where the rats and bugs don't have a problem with your beating heart. Or your screaming tongue. Or any other fleshy part of you they decide to eat. And the last thing you remember is the feeling of teeth clinking against your teeth while they got a grip on your head and ripped it from your body.

Laptop Strap Sucker

That when you are traveling on business and trying to keep your bags to a minimum, you stuff everything into a tiny laptop bag...including toiletries, underwear and so forth. The trouble emerges when you forget to secure the laptop straps and because the bag is so heavy, it hangs low in one arm whilst you mount escalators and other in-building conveyances.

Then, when you're about to emerge from Amtrak or some escalator to heaven outside the Atlanta airport, the straps get sucked into the teeth of the stairs and pull your weary soul with them. Struggling to shake your arms loose, you fail and are suddenly just a pile of shredded human plasma thumping against the top step at the airport exit.

Zombie Encounter - The Pool Version

That when you are watching the pool for some friends away on pleasure, you walk into the pump house to adjust the water settings and - like in the campfire stories we all dread - there's a dead body propped up in the corner of the wooden shed. Scrambling to get away, you allow your feet to become tangled in hose and you fall backward on the concrete. But no, you don't bang your head or even injure yourself and you smile wryly as you hop up and start to sprint away.

Then it happens, you miss a step and plunk your foot squarely into the filter hole which by this time is filled with eyeballs and other body parts because - as you notice - the pool is full of bodies and the one body you thought you were sure of, is now ambling out of the shed with a machete in its hand. As your end comes quickly and painfully - you are sure of two things: zombies are real; you aren't really a fan of swimming pool maintenance.

Mole Sauce

That when your cat comes home from a tough day at the office - errr field - she will bring with her a plump, yet dead mole. You won't notice this mole in the cat's mouth as she proudly trots into the house and deposits the dead creature in the middle of the floor.

Your efforts to save energy have resulted in keeping the house quite dark, so you don't see the mole at all during the day and it's only when you get up in the middle of the night to pee that your path takes you squarely over the mole. You barely brush it on the path to the bathroom, so nothing happens. But then...as you exit the bathroom and wend your way back to bed you stomp directly on the squishy rodent. You yelp loudly, lose your balance and tumble headlong into a poorly constructed IKEA bookcase (that's another worry), which then topples over and pins you - with your head next to the mole body - under scads of social media books and nametags from various conferences and Tweetups.

Finally, the cat hears you screaming and comes over to you and bites your face because she was trying to sleep.

Lawn Lacerations and Limb Loss

While you ride your scooter or bicycle on the highways and byways of this great land, you'll notice good folks mowing their lawns and keeping their yards manicured and pristine. With these little two-stroke engines, people chop grass and sometimes fling detritus in the air. It is this detritus with which we are concerned.

You see, as you pedal along (or buzz by), rocks are fired at you with tremendous speed because the mower has neglected to realize that parallel mowing can impact passersby. You - a passerby - are subsequently struck by a sharp rock that slices cleanly through your elbow joint and arm, leaving you without any control over the handlbar of your vehicle.

Then, as you veer toward the municipal bus - speeding as usual toward you while the driver text messages her order for a lunch cake - you understand the fear early pilots had when walking around prop planes. And, just before the impact that takes your life, you think about your own lawn and how brown and dead it will get without you around to tend to it. To the very last, worried too much about what others might think of your outward appearance and too little about your inner beauty.

Escalating One's Fears

That the escalator on which you’re riding has a too-big gap between the plates forming its stairs. And the shoelaces on the shoes you chose to impress your audience (at the latest Inbound Marketing Summit session on how social media can actually cure sick kittens and make food appear in homeless shelters all over the globe) are destined to be sucked into the escalator causing not only a horrible grated human mess, but underscoring the fact that not even Zappos can deliver happiness if a contraption invented in 1891 hasn’t been refined enough to keep people from dying atop it.

Just Buggin'

That when the bug in the shower gets washed away with your shampoo and other suds, it emits a scream that only other bugs can hear as it enters the drain and then a sewer’s worth of bugs from all the pipes in all the homes and drains all over town start crawling back up toward your shower.

And, as you rinse the vestiges of soap from your body and squeeze the water from your golden locks, an entire battalion of creepy, crawly, icky, slimy and disgusting bugs emerge from the drain and immediately block your exit from the shower. You know in an instant that your moments are numbered as the millions of tiny feet grip your clean, glistening skin and crawl up your body to enter your soon-to-be corpse through your screaming mouth.

Oil Spill Horror

That when reporting for #ioilspill you bend near the water trying to locate a tarball and suddenly are attacked simultaneously from three directions...from the water's surface by an alligator, from the shallows by a shark who's angry that it's currently #sharkweek on Discovery Channel, and from behind by a local rattler who is peeved that you've left footprints on his sugar-sand beach.

Needless to say, your last thoughts are about the gator, shark, rattler Po'boy you're going to order in heaven.

Catcher's Dilemma

That while playing catcher in a baseball game, you are positioned behind the plate in an appropriate place to catch the ball, but the pitcher and the coach keep asking you to move forward so that sinkers and other breaking balls don't bounce in the dirt in front of you.

You comply after much berating and instantly feel the error of you decision as the batter swings wildly at the next pitch - but because you had inched forward, your head is actually on the same plane as the batter's bat and your eyeballs and a pile of snot are expelled from your skull with the force of the blow. And you collapse in a heap...your last thought, "I knew chess club was a safer choice."

Can You Hear Me Now - Electric Slide Version

That while you ride your environmentally sound motor scooter around town the old folks and tree huggers in their modern semi-electric vehicles are chatting on their phone while sliding silently down the road. And, while you are minding your own business, these Prius-heads are so inured to the world around them - believing they are in a meadow or something - that they fail to hear you puttering along beside them. In fact, they are so against creating any noise pollution that they fail to even use their directional when they take over your lane, nearly crushing you to a pulp and causing you to worry that they might not even hear your cries for mercy as you become paste against the curb.

**Thankfully, the 130 decibel horn you had installed on your scooter jolted them back awake...BUT only after pressing it for five full continuous seconds.**

Theatrical Permanent Sabbatical

That after you've watched the final showing of the final film in an old movie theater and get up to leave, your shoes get stuck to JuJuBe goop or some other concoction that's on the floor of the ancient building. And as you struggle to get free, the sticky mess causes you to tweak your ankle and you collapse to your knees. Then you realize that your feet, knees and shins are cemented to the ugly ooze and put your hands down to free yourself, but that doesn't work. The sugary death trap only behaves more like quicksand than a happy and tasty sucrose treat, and there you remain for weeks and months as spiders and other insects wrap you in webs and dust. You might stay alive by sucking on the leg of a movie theater seat, but then the wrecking ball comes and your frail visage is shattered and crushed like so many Hollywood dreams.

Bee Very Careful

That when sipping tea at the local coffee shoppe, you kick at a wasp that has wandered near your table and put your foot through the 9-foot vertical picture window. Then, as you struggle to get out of your chair, you notice that the guillotine-like shard of glass is about slice off your leg. But worse, the wasp had friends who just escaped the nest beside the window and are heck-bent on stinging you to death.

Cat Tail Travesty

That while you watch the Tour de France on TV, you remain inside because of the constant rain. And while you watch you decide to increase your fitness by riding your bike trainer indoors. And while you ride your trainer, the cats you have raised from kittens decide to dash into the moving rear wheel.

Then, the shredded cat flesh and bones shoot upward at the speed of light and puncture your spine - rendering you paralyzed and unable to phone for help or even 'boop' 'boop' 'boop' through the commercials.

Neighbors find your decaying body among the cat detritus well after the TDF winner has been crowned.

Cord Crippler

That when bringing an old computer monitor to the dump or recycling spot, the cord will protest and wrap itself around your ankles tripping you and tossing you headlong down the granite steps outside your home. In an effort to break your fall you'll let go of the monitor and - similar to the motorcycle daredevil who abandons his cycle only to crash into it seconds later - you'll slice your arms to ribbons when you thrust your arms into the screen. The whole debacle will continue until you and the monitor, entangled in death, roll slowly to the curb where the trash guy will toss you both into the crusher.

Futon Fear

That when you've set the futon up as a bed you'll likely roll too close to the side while watching TV and suddenly the allen bolts holding the whole contraption together will let go and pitch you headlong onto the floor.

Then, the rest of the wooden deathtrap will pummel you causing splinters and unimaginable pain right before the freakishly heavy mattress smothers you.

The worst part is that someone will have to find you this way, negating the possibility of an open casket because you'll have some ugly flower or herringbone print mashed into your previously gorgeous visage.

Lakeside Animosity

That while traipsing along a lakeside on a carefree nature walk, the turles on the logs, the mountain lions in the woods, the deer, the snakes, the spiders and other assorted creatures won't be deterred by the loud stomping of your feet and will coordinate a careful picking clean of your bones after they attack and destroy you.

Betting on Bed Badness

That as you slow for a stoplight or pedestrian or dog or any other road hazard, the $1000 bed frame you just purchased at IKEA and strapped to the top of your tiny car will rocket forward like...well, like a rocket, and splinter into a billion pieces.

Then, as you roll slowly forward, your tires will all get punctured by the hazardous fiberboard and the car will sink down on its haunches.

THEN, an 18-wheeler will barrel along down the road and won't see your tiny car because it has dropped to its knees and is sitting like a speed bump in the path of the monstrous vehicle.

Finally, you'll get crushed into the pavement by the truck and come to your final resting place - ironically - among the detritus that once was your new bed.

Mighty Meteor

That when you least expect it, you'll have a mammoth or dinosaur moment and be obliterated by an asteroid or meteor. To counteract this I suggest building a bunker in the back yard with tunnels from your home or apartment.