Lifesaving tips
The whole of Part 5 has nothing to do with spiritual matters, but the tips are valuable and worth sharing.
━━━━━ ▲━━━━━
Dogs and cows
Don’t take your dog walking in a field where there are cows. The cows get enraged at the presence of a dog and will attack you, the human, sometimes fatally. They won’t attack the dog.
No cat or kitten in a room with a sleeping baby
When I was in my 20s, I read a piece of advice: Don’t let a cat stay in a room with a sleeping baby. The cat will lie on the baby’s face and will suffocate it. When I was 40 I adopted a kitten. Several times at night the kitten lay on my face, covering my nose, and I stopped breathing. Each time I woke up and shifted my head slightly, so I could breathe again. A baby wouldn’t have done that.
I think the kitten was annoyed at the draught, the flow of air from my nostrils onto her fur, so she blocked the annoying draught. When she became a full-grown cat, she didn’t lie on my face anymore.
Upshot: I would let neither kitten nor full-grown cat stay in a room with a sleeping baby.
The footbrake on your automatic car …
… won’t work if you haven’t turned the engine on. Don’t coast down the hill without turning the engine on.
Don’t keep an empty chest unlocked
If you have an empty linen chest in your home, and you have children, keep the chest locked and the key hidden. The children can be playing hide and seek, and they can hide in the chest. The lid closes, and the children can’t open it from the inside. It’s airtight.
This tragedy happened in Austria. Some years ago, two small boys hid in a chest. They couldn’t be found. By the time the family thought to look in the chest, the boys had died.
Last year, 2023, I heard of such a tragedy again. This time it was in Florida. Two twin sisters suffocated in their toy box. I can’t imagine why a toy box would be built so sturdily that it’s airtight and sound-proof, but it was.
My advice is to tell your children about the danger and either get rid of large, airtight boxes, or keep them locked.
Repel sharks with brightly-striped swimwear
It’s known that bright stripes repel sharks. For sharks, the bright stripes look like coral snakes, which are brightly striped and poisonous. Sharks are frightened of coral snakes and will swim away.
For this reason, people put bright stripes on their surf boards. I say go one step further: Wear bright stripes yourself. Swim with clothing that’s brightly striped, such as a brightly-striped t-shirt. Best is if the t-shirt has elastic fibres (spandex, elastane), so it’ll hug your body and won’t float up.
My own experience: In 2017 I went swimming with the nurse sharks at Staniel Cay in the Bahamas. I think I was wearing my swimming t-shirt, because I always wear it to protect from sunburn (although I don’t remember this particular detail on that particular day). My swimming t-shirt just happens to be a bright, red-and-white striped, body-hugging t-shirt. Our whole group was in the shallow water with the friendly nurse sharks milling around. But then I got in the water, and the nurse sharks all swam away. After a few minutes I got out, and the nurse sharks all came back.
My feelings were hurt. Back then I didn’t connect repelling the sharks with the striped t-shirt, which I might or might not have been wearing.
It’s not enough for your swimwear to be bright; it also has to be striped.
A young Austrian man asked me if all sharks are repelled by stripes, even those who’ve never seen a coral snake. I can’t answer that question.
Update of 28 July 2024: Today I asked Google’s Gemini if it’s true that sharks are repelled by bright stripes. Gemini said “No”. But I don’t agree. Here’s one way to test it: Go to an aquarium, a large aquarium with a shark tank where you get to stand on one side of the glass and the sharks are swimming on the other side, a few feet away from you. Wear bright stripes and see if you repel the sharks.
