tugboats

I
beg to differ. As usual, those college guys have got it wrong. I'll
agree that the #1 need is for survival but #2 is not sex. No sir, #2,
just below survival, is the need for humans to remain in their own
comfort zone. Not only that, sometimes this need is so strong, it actually eclipses
survival.

An
example: remember my issue on grabbers, those little devices you attach
to a letter to grab your reader's attention. Well, there is more than
one kind of grabber. For example, many restaurants keep a quite
different type of grabber on hand. It's like a huge pair of plastic
tweezers and it is used to grab chunks of food that get stuck in a
customer's throat.

You
see, many Americans, because of haste or denture problems, are often
not able to properly masticate a mouthful of meat. So, when they try to
swallow, the meat gets stuck in their throat, blocks off their air
supply and, if not removed promptly, causes them to die of suffocation.

This
is no laughing matter. It actually happens quite often. But, you know
what? Whenever it does happen, often the suffocating person will be more worried about
being embarrassed than he will about dying.

Same
thing with heart attacks. Ask any doctor. Often a poor soul in the
throes of cardiac arrest will say something like:

"Excuse
me, I hate to bother

you but I think I'm having

a heart attack."

Very
polite. Very eager not to make waves. Very concerned about not being
too much of a bother to anyone. Very concerned...