Experience

Rainy afternoon. So I wrote this, composed entirely of headlines from The Guardian's 'Experience' section:

I'm afraid of stairs.
I'm allergic to sunlight.
I'm allergic to everything.
My tongue is worth £1m.
Muhammad Ali was my mentor.
I'm the world's oldest wing walker.
I'm a sex-somniac.
I'm a man and a woman.
I'm a championship arm-wrestler.
I can't stop stealing.
I feel other people's pain.
One drink and I'm dead.
I eat roadkill.
I say 'biscuit' 900 times an hour.
I live with 24 crocodiles in an Oxford semi.
I climb erupting volcanoes for fun.
I have a phobia of sound.
And I don't wear shoes.
---
I was adrift on a raft in the Atlantic for 76 days.
I have had a headache for 6 years.
I didn't leave my house for a decade.
I was silent for 11 years.
I was celibate for 12 years.
I've played a game of tag for 23 years.
I disappeared for 30 years.
(I spent 29 years in solitary confinement.)
I was 30 before I learned to read.
I've worn the same outfit as my husband for 35 years.
My first love has stalked me for 40 years.
I found my friend after 40 years, and married her.
I found my sister after 47 years.
I couldn't read until I was 60.
I am a 91-year-old bodybuilder.
---
My best friend blinded me.
My reindeer tried to kill me.
I caught the plague from my cat.
My dog found my cancer.
A stranger pushed me on to train tracks.
A stranger snatched my daughter.
(I nearly died defending strangers.)
I was bitten by a rattlesnake.
My microwave nearly killed me.
My holiday romance nearly killed me.
Running a marathon nearly killed me.
My dad ran me over.
I sent my dad to prison.
---
I was trapped in my car hanging off a motorway bridge.
My bungee cord snapped.
I fell off a cliff.
I fell out of the sky.
I fell 30ft dressed as Spider-Man.
I fell through a wood chipper.
My arm was torn off by a tractor.
I was swept away by white-water rapids.
I was swept away by a flood.
I nearly drowned.
I was swallowed by a hippo.
I've been rescued 15 times.
---
I was a sperm donor for my friends.
Being a sperm donor gave me a sense of responsibility.
I taught a homeless man to code.
I saved a toddler trapped on a roof.
I saved a man from drowning himself.
I caught a falling baby.
My house was destroyed by lightning.
---
I prevented a motorway pile-up.
I was held up at gunpoint in a bank raid.
I found my birth mother five minutes from home.
I lost my dad on the London underground.
I became a pop star overnight.
I blew myself up at a festival.
I was an internet troll.
A typo led me to my soulmate.
I discovered a new species up my nose.
I had a worm in my brain.
I saved my school class during a tornado.
I was flung from a moving truck.
I survived an earthquake while scuba diving.
I inherited a giant hole in the ground.
I taught myself to see.
I went blind on my wedding day.
I was a bartender in Antarctica.
I woke up with a Russian accent.
I invented the vuvuzela.
I started a forest fire.
I met my sister for the first time in prison.
I was the daughter of a mafia boss.
I punched a bear.
I was crushed by a cow.
I saved a man's life while singing Stayin' Alive.
And I was shot in the face by a crossbow.
---
I could never live up to being a child prodigy.

August 2016