In my life so far I have had many near death experiences. When I was just a wee little infant I was laying in my crib while my brother decided to play ball in our room. He hit a light up above my crib and it fell on me. Pieces of the light fixture miraculously landed everywhere around me, but I was left unharmed.

At the tender age of three my mom took us to her friend's Fourth of July party. I was chasing a frog around when someone thought it would be funny to light a firecracker and scare me. Well, mission accomplished. I was scared shitless. So much to the point that I jumped backward and fell through a basement window and had a chunk of glass in my head. A high-speed car ride to the emergency room and a few stitches later I was doing somersaults off the couch. I still have a nice big scar behind my ear where I lost a chunk of skin.

At age four I spent the afternoon at a family friend's pool party. The adults grilled out and had drinks while the kids swam and played hide and seek. I didn't know how to swim, so I wasn't allowed in the pool without my floaties or a life jacket. When nobody was looking I went down to the pool. I didn't have my life jacket, but it was sitting on the edge of the pool. Upon reaching for my floatation device I accidentally kicked it in the pool. I tried to grab it, but instead I fell head first into the pool and nearly drowned. If my aunt would've seen me a few seconds later I would've been done.

All of my cousins and I got a big family picture taken with our grandparents when I was five. It was taking forever and all the kids started getting restless, so in an effort to shut us up for a little while, my grandma gave us all life savers. I had never had one before so I didn't realize you were supposed to just suck on it. Instead I tried to swallow it whole and started choking to death. I would've been a goner for sure had my grandpa not scooped me up by ankles and proceeded to beat me like a rug.

I was testing out my brother's old school Spider-Man bike when I was six and decided to see how fast I could go. I was doing alright going down the street, but I needed something better. Something like a hill. So I started riding as fast as I could down the hill by Heath's house not looking to see if any cars were coming across the intersection at the bottom. Luckily Heath's mom was outside mowing her lawn and noticed me coming down the hill at full speed while a motorcycle was coming full speed from the other direction. That cycle would've smoked me if Heath's mom didn't run out in the street and stop him. She screamed at me and made me go inside and call my mom. That was two near death experiences in a matter of ten minutes.

Over the next fifteen years I had many more near dearth experiences including car accidents, falling out of trees, nearly breaking my neck, fires, getting mauled by a dog, almost getting trampled by a horse, and coming home late for supper at my grandpa's house. I was even robbed at gunpoint in Phoenix. But the time I really thought I was going to die was when I was twenty-one hanging out in the Track II.

It was a Tuesday night and Amanda was working. I got hurt at work so I had the night off. I was in the bar talking to Amanda when two guys came in, one named Earl. Earl and his friends began discussing hot foods. They soon began trying to one-up each other by eating jalapeño peppers. I also have a high tolerance for hot and spicy food, so I got in on it as well.  Before I knew it I was dipping Chile Peppers in Tabasco sauce and eating them like they were carrots...or a food that you enjoy. It was a little hot, but it was no big deal for me. So when that wasn't enough, we just started doing shots of hot sauce. That still wasn't that big of a deal. That's when Earl got this sinister look on his face and said, "I'll be right back".

Earl came back a few minutes later with a little bottle in his hand and a great big smile on his face. He looked like a little kid trick or treating...a little kid dressed as a biker with a ZZ Top beard. Earl looked me in the eyes and challenged my manhood in front of everybody in the bar.

"You think you can handle this shit?"
"What is it?"
"It's a surprise."
"Tell me what it is."
"It's called Da Bomb."
"Why do they call it that?"
"Taste it and find out. Wait. You probably aint got the balls."
"Give me the bottle."

I should've just quit while I was ahead, but he challenged my testicular fortitude. I felt obligated to defend myself against his accusation.  Earl unscrewed the lid of the bottle that looked like something you would find in a lab and handed me a tooth pick. I didn't understand what it was for until he explained that I should only put a little bit on the tooth pick and take a tiny taste. Earl had already questioned if I had any balls, so I showed him just how big my balls were. I threw the tooth pick a way and took a great big swig from the bottle.

Now just so we're clear, "Da Bomb" hot sauce is a byproduct of Tijuana Flats Hot Foods. There are a few different kinds of Da Bomb. There's Da Bomb, Da Bomb: Beyond Insanity, and Da Bomb: Ground Zero. What I had just guzzled was Da Bomb: Final Answer. The hottest of all the sauces. It is rated at 1,500,000 Scoville units and is not intended for direct consumption, but to be used as a food additive. There's even a warning on the label that says Do NOT eat straight out of the jar.  About 2.3 seconds after I swallowed the sauce, I understood why they called it "Da Bomb". I was about to explode. I was immediately out of breath, my face was maroon, and I was sweating like a dog at Michael Vick's house. I needed to drink something, so I grabbed the first beverage I could reach and slammed it. Unfortunately what I grabbed was Tara's three hour old pitcher of Budweiser. That made me feel even worse.

At first everybody was laughing at me, but I think Amanda actually began to grow concerned for my health. She started feeding me crackers and chips, but it still wasn't helping. By this point I fell to the ground and almost passed out. My eyes were as bloodshot as Darryl Strawberry's and I couldn't talk. Amanda poured me a glass of water, but I remembered from cooking class that water would only make it worse and you're supposed to drink milk. Luckily for me there was milk at the bar.  I slammed a glass of milk and mowed a few more crackers, but to no avail. I still thought I was going to die. So I slammed another glass of milk...and another...and another. I pretty much chugged an entire gallon of milk before I was through. A gallon of milk mixed with crackers, warm flat beer, and the molten lava that Earl fed me was not a kosher combination. I fell to the floor again. Now my mouth was on fire, my tongue was melting, I was crying, I was sweating, and I was starting to get nauseous. Out of respect for the bar, I crawled outside. It was only about 6:00, so the sun was still out. That was great.

I couldn't take it anymore, so I made my way over to the fence outside and started unleashing the demons. For eight minutes I sat outside puking and crying. There was a second that I thought that maybe I did die and I was going through the first layer of hell. It sure fucking felt like it.

When I was done puking, I just laid against the fence in the fetal position. I didn't care what anybody thought. I just wanted to lay there and cry. About fifteen minutes later Amanda came out worried about me.

"Are you okay?"
"I don't know."
"Did you puke?"
"A lot."
"Do you need anything?"
"You have any gum?"
"You dumbass."

My mouth was pretty much numb for the next four days. When I finally cooled off that night I started to think about my friend Bobby who one time jerked off before washing Tabasco sauce off his hands. He told me it was the most painful thing ever. He should be happy he didn't have The Bomb on his hands.