Matthew Benson Applehead (MBA) had trouble peeing one night. Fearing he might be a diabetic, he ran to a nearby hospital.
A passing car blinded him and while he was jabbering on his cell phone, a truck ran over him, killing him instantly.
Bad luck, you say?
Nope. MBA did not use any of his five senses.
Let us begin with his inability to pee. What was the reason? Who knows? Perhaps he was too tense because of a recent stock merger that had gone south.
Alas, when he did not pee, MBA panicked. If he had dipped his hand in warm water, everything probably would have been fine; he would have returned to bed and he would still be alive today. MBA did not have enough sense to employ his sense of touch.
As he clomped along the road to the hospital, he was blinded by oncoming traffic. If you walk along a road in the darkness and bright headlights approach, close one eye. When the headlights pass, the eye you’ve closed will still be able to see in the dark. Poor MBA did not have enough sense to use his sense of sight.
Hearing? As MBA stumbled toward the hospital he was yapping on his cell phone. The voice on the other end of the line was garbled so MBA covered one ear, thinking he could hear better. How stupid he was. Humans have two ears and those ears will selectively home in on specific sounds.
The reason MBA was having trouble hearing was that his mouthpiece was picking up ambient sound and feeding that into his earpiece.
Had MBA covered the mouthpiece of his cell phone, his ears would have automatically compensated and his brain would have registered only the clean sound coming through the earpiece.
The other ear would have “tuned out.” But its receptors still would have functioned, alerting MBA that an oncoming semi was hurling toward him. As it was, MBA never even felt the truck hit him, let alone heard it.
Another sense could have saved MBA: taste. As you will recall, he feared he was diabetic. To dispel this fear, all MBA would have had to do was taste his own urine.
The urine from a diabetic usually has a decidedly sweet taste. But MBA, consumed with leveraged buyouts, was so oblivious to his senses, he could not think straight. He paid the ultimate price. Death. Ha, ha, joke’s on him.
(Old-time medical doctors tested their patients for diabetes by tasting their urine for traces of sugar. Revolting? Not really. The urine that exits your kidneys is probably as pure as tap water. One of the first things you learn in survival school is to drink your own urine to avoid dying of thirst. MBA would have lasted about 15 seconds in wilderness conditions.)
The fifth sense is smell. How could that have saved MBA? When humans are near panic, they sweat. And yes, you can smell your own fear. It means you are on the verge of panic and something horrible is probably about to happen.
Next time you smell your own fear, be very, very careful. Relax. Get things into perspective before you stagger, blind and deaf, into the path of a speeding truck.
Tragically, if MBA had paid attention to any one of his five senses, he would still be alive. But MBA was only concerned with money and business.
Lord save us from the MBAs of this planet before they all kill themselves off and us with them.
