Just how much safety can one small, blonde head handle?

Nobody has ever accused me of taking the safe road. In my youth, I was the rotten kid from down the block who always managed to talk your otherwise rational son into doing something a) dangerous, b) stupid, or c) mildly illegal. I wasn’t a bad kid, not really; I was just sort of...careless.

For instance, I once convinced my buddy Dale that we should, on the spur of the moment, hitchhike to Chicago. We were 17. We had no money, no parental permission and no idea what we were going to do once we arrived in the Windy City. And yet, one summer’s night we found ourselves on US 131 with our thumbs out, waiting for a ride from someone we fervently hoped would not be a serial killer.

Another time my friends and I hiked across the Anne Street Bridge; we crossed beneath the bridge, actually, by clinging precariously to the latticework of girders 50 feet above the Grand River, which at that time of year (January) was nearly frozen over. A fall would have proved fatal. But there we were, risking life and limb simply because it seemed to me a good idea at the time.

My lack of self-preservation skills followed me into adulthood. Over the years (and against the advice of experts) I frequented tanning salons, drank too much beer, ate too much salt, avoided doctors, alternately worked out too hard and not hard enough, rode motorcycles in the rain and snow, piloted a small plane in bad weather, and occasionally argued strenuously with guys who could crush my head like a paper cup.

And whenever possible, I talked my friends into doing it all with me. Craziness, like misery, loves company.

This is why I have a problem with my girlfriend Anne. My Sweet Annie has a big personality; full of life, vitality, energy and enthusiasm. But all that is tempered with a healthy dose of common sense, and it is here we part ways.

Anne warms up before exercising. She puts her headlights on at the first sign of dusk. She refuses to eat food that’s past its expiration date, even if nothing’s growing on it! I know, crazy right?

But craziest of all is her fear of direct sunlight. Next to Anne, Count Dracula is a beach bum. Sure, the sun is in fact a huge ball of constantly-erupting, highly radioactive material, but Anne acts as if it were hanging in our back yard. She wears sunscreen; not your garden-variety sun block, but some sort of zinc oxide coating applied with a roller and with a SPF factor of 200. A house has a rating of about 19, I think, by way of comparison.

She tops this off by donning a hat with a brim larger than the one Sally Field sported in The Flying Nun. In dim light this hat is easily mistaken for a low-flying UFO. In case of emergency, a family of four could set up temporary shelter beneath this hat and not feel particularly cramped.

If it is a fashion statement, as Anne sometimes claims, that statement is: I don’t care how crazy I look. She had another, smaller hat last year; still large and goofy-looking, but smaller than this one.

I’m concerned where things will lead if this trend toward ever more expansive hats continues. Anne is not a large woman. I fear she will one day be getting ready for a walk and be crushed beneath her headgear.

All in the name of safety.

Mike Taylor’s new book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available at mtrealitycheck.com and in eBook format at Barnes & Noble, Border’s Books and other online book sellers. Email Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.