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WotD: Close call
Have you ever been in a dangerous situation or had a close call and didn’t realize it until later that night when you were relaxing at home?
Before I tell you about it, let me explain the meaning of today’s word.
A close call or a close shave is when something dangerous almost happens to you but doesn’t.
Well, I had a close call once.
I don’t know how I got myself into that situation, but I do know that it was a very perilous situation that could have ruined my life for a very long time.
I was in Canada on the Via Rail ‘Millennium Train’.
It was December 31st, 1999, the eve of the new millennium, and I was taking the train back from Toronto to Vancouver.
I had spent the day in the observation car for economy class passengers.
It was a great time, and I thoroughly enjoyed the day.
It was also the time of the Y2K bug.
There was a concern that computers would stop working when the year changed to 2000.
For this reason, the train stopped to wait for the New Year.
That’s when I had my memorable close call.
I went to the bathroom, and before I closed the door, a woman I had never seen before pushed her way in with me.
She was three sheets to the wind.
She told me that if I didn’t say I loved her, she would scream and say I had raped her.
My life flashed before my eyes, and I knew that if she screamed, I would automatically be thought guilty.
Luckily for me, she passed out before I could say anything.
That was my surreal close call.
I went back to my seat and quietly celebrated the New Year alone, thanking my lucky stars.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 6th-grade education (age 11).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 80.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.