A few years ago Anita surprised me with a 1)suit. It was handsome and fashionable， and believe it or not， I looked pretty elegant in it. At least， I did—until I started bleeding on it.
It happened one Sunday when my young friend Tommy and I were visiting with Rosa， a member of our church 2)congregation. Our conversation had been delightful， and as Tommy and I left through Rosa’s garage (hey， she had one of those big dogs out front， and I wasn’t about to get paw prints on my new suit) we were doing some 3)good-natured teasing back and forth. Which is probably why I didn’t notice the garage 4)door opener that hung low in Rosa’s garage， or that my head was within range of the metallic box at the precise moment I decided to 5)lunge at Tommy.
Suddenly I knew what a baseball felt like after Hammerin’ 6)Hank Aaron got through with it. The blow to the top of my head 7)staggered me. I stumbled around like a 8)punch-drunk 9)heavyweight with only one thought in my suddenly numb head： “If you fall down you’ll get your new suit dirty.” I regained my balance and struggled to regain my composure—or to at least remember who I was， where I was， and what I was doing wearing such fine 10)threads.
That’s when the blood started 11)trickling off the end of my nose and landing on my pants. Still 12)groggy， I tried to dodge the staining 13)droplets. But to my horror I discovered that the dripping blood followed me everywhere I moved. Finally Tommy grabbed me and started wiping the blood from my face with a washcloth that Rosa had given him.
“Are you OK？” he asked.
For all I knew I was headed (if you’ll pardon the expression) for a coma. My career could be over. My family could be on its way to the 14)poor house (er， poorer house). Life as we knew it could be over. But all I could think of was...