Some of you who read my "5 things" post are wondering how the heck it is that I've almost died three times. Well, here are descriptions of those incidents, for your reading pleasure:

1. One time when I was three, my whole mom's side of the family was visiting at my grandparents' house. They have a pool and I was in it with my dad. My uncle was not in the pool, but was hanging out talking with my dad. All my cousins and my brother were drying up inside the house. I was laying on an inflated cellphone-shaped floating pool pad thing. I wanted it to move, so leaned over to paddle with my arms. I guess I leaned over too much and I fell in. With my eyes open, I was sinking to the bottom of the 4ft pool. I don't know why I didn't just come right up, but it took my dad to realize I'd disappeared to turn around and grab me and bring me above the water's surface. I was gravely traumatized of being in water from that point on, until my teen years.

2. I was at a pool party with my Cub Scout den. I was hanging out in the shallow area and not going into the deep water (because of fear caused by near death experience numero uno). One of my fellow patrol members motioned for me to come join them on the other side of the pool. They had all kinds of pool toys with them there and were having tons of fun. He told me it wasn't deep and that I was going to be perfectly okay. So I started to walk over. Well, you know those steep, slippery slopes that some pools have to go from shallow to deep really quick? Well, I slid down one and all of a sudden, I was drowning. It caught me completely off-guard. I was going under. The parents were present but not by the pool, really, so they missed all of this. My friend, however, did not. He immediately came to my rescue and carried me back to the shallow area. He apologized, and I forgave him...and then didn't go back in the pool again for the rest of the afternoon. And this didn't help relieve my fear of water any, needless to say.

3. I was about 12, I think. 12 or 13. And I was going hiking with my cousin and his dad (the same uncle from story #1) and a bunch of the other scouts and their dads from his scout troop. It was an awesome hike because we went onto highway roads and down an actual stream and up snowy mountainsides and through forests...it was just insane. Well, while in the snowy areas, there was one part where you really couldn't see how wide the trail was. I apparently misstepped and started to slide down this mountainside. It was really steep. It wasn't a cliff, but you could see the nearby lake and a town not far away from the mountain's base and I was about to find myself sliding really fast down towards all that. My cousin must have immediately sensed something was wrong because he spun around and grabbed me before I slid much at all. It felt like much longer than a split second to me. I really could have slid/fallen down, but he saved me. I don't know if I'd have died, but it was pretty f***ing scary regardless.