Trivia Fun

He says... She says...What's your guess?

1. On average, single men do this once every four weeks.

2.Ninety-five percent of these are bought by women.

3. Twenty percent of men said they would wear this if they wouldn’t get ridiculed.

4. One in four men have priced this in the last year.

5. Thirty-one percent of married men say they have never done this.

6. The majority of married women say they have used this same thing every day since the day they got married.

7. Women think about this 43 times a day! What is it?

8. According to a recent survey, the most sweat producing activity is exercise. What came in second?

9. 76% of people eat this off a chocolate bunny first.

10. 126,000 men per year end up in the emergency room after using one of these.

11. If parents could do this all over again, 1 in 10 say they would have done it differently... What is it?

12. Almost four in ten women describe their man with one word...

13. Thirty percent of men do this shortly after a divorce.....

14. Men always think they're right, but according to a recent survey, 8 out of 10 men were completely wrong about this when they looked it up on the internet...

Click for Answers

Thanks to Jen Toohey at Q104 in Cleveland for doing these fun trivia questions every day and for letting me interview her about her career as a DJ! I'm hoping, fingers crossed, to be able to write a DJ heroine soon.

 

 

Hold onto the board, he commanded himself as the shark passed under him, bumping. It was a light nudge, tentative on the part of the shark, but enough to indicate to Houston that this fish wasn’t going to swim on and leave him alone. If the shark thought he was a big ass seal, he’d be carved up by razor sharp teeth, skinned, and gutted in minutes.

Which wasn’t an appealing thought.

“Christian!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, praying his friend would hear, fear creeping up on him fast and hard.

There wasn’t time to do anything else but give that single shout-out. Another bump and Houston’s right leg fell into the water with a splash. Before he could pull it up, he felt a sharp tug on his foot and calf. The water ran red around him and he yanked his foot back in amazement, not sure where all the blood was coming from.

The shark came with him. Clamped onto Houston’s leg, his snout beginning to shake back and forth.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Houston couldn’t feel pain, just the pressure and weight and the rocking imbalance of the board, and his brain could only focus on two things.

Get it off. Don’t fall off the board.

Rows of sallow white teeth were in his flesh, and his leg felt wet, warm, heavy, the spray of the water from the shark’s jerky movements blinding him. When Houston blinked to clear his vision he saw the shark’s cold black eyes roll up in his head in the instinctive protective maneuver of the hunter, and a gag rose in Houston’s throat.

Swearing, he reached out and pried at the shark’s mouth, cutting his hand on the knife-like teeth instead of loosening the grip of the animal. Pain shot through his thumb, and he pulled back with a wince, than in desperation went for the gills. He ground his fingernails into the shark’s most vulnerable spot and ripped back as hard as he could, ignoring the tender flesh on his palm being sliced by the rough sharkskin.

It worked. The animal let go, falling back into the water with a red snout and dropping down deep. Houston sucked in a shuddering breath and watched wildly for any signs of the shark’s return. Though his hand throbbed, there wasn’t any pain in his leg and he had the sudden horrible thought that the bottom of his leg was gone.

“Don’t look, don’t look,” he chanted in a strangled whisper, gut churning, fighting the need to lean over the board and toss his dinner into the water.

He couldn’t afford to panic if the limb was severed, so maybe it was better not to look. He needed to get out of the water before he bled to death. With shaky fingers, he started paddling, lying flat on the board, his uninjured leg in a tuck, the other still dangling in the water. He was afraid to move it, afraid it wouldn’t be there, but he knew he couldn’t leave it in the water where the blood would flow faster, weakening him. Or worse, draw the shark’s attention back to him.

Dragging his limb out with his hand, he grimaced at the wet warm blood he felt, but sighed with shaky relief, patting everywhere he could reach. Everything seemed to be there, including his foot. It took all his energy to paddle, his heart starting to race and his breath turning shallow. He couldn’t summon the strength to call out for Christian, or even turn his head to look around for him.

Pain came without warning. Sharp, excruciating pain in his calf that made him groan out loud.

But he wasn’t far out. He could see the shore ahead of him. Gritting his teeth, he concentrated on Dennis still standing on the shore. He focused on making him bigger. One stroke. Another. Dennis was growing, his features becoming clearer. Houston was getting closer.

Fighting the nausea rising in his stomach, he kept paddling, conscious enough to realize that the breaking of the waves was helping to propel him forward now. He could do this. He could make it in.

Still hugging his board as he washed in, he took a deep breath, relieved to hear the confusion of feet moving towards him.

“Houston, what’s the matter?”

With a curse, he forced himself to roll over onto his back, biting his lip in pain as the movement jarred his whole lower half. He closed his eyes against the glare of the setting sun. “My leg.”

Dennis made a strangled sound. “What happened?”

“Shark. Call 911.”

“Right.”

Houston heard the sounds of Dennis running off across the sand. He opened his eyes to force himself to look at his wound for the first time, wondering if he was being a huge wimp or if he was seriously injured.

He frowned when he saw it. He couldn’t even see the wound for all the blood. In alarm he tried to sit up, but immediately felt light-headed and in danger of passing out. Quickly he lay back down, and took deep breaths. He couldn’t afford to faint. He was the doctor here, and this bleeding needed to be stopped.

With his trembling hand he pressed down against the wound to staunch the flow of blood, noticing that he was injured from knee to ankle with what appeared to be lacerations and puncture wounds. Houston suspected the injuries themselves weren’t threatening, but that he had lost a fair amount of blood due to lack of clotting in the water.

Christian dropped down onto the sand beside him.

“Holy shit…” his voice trailed off as he took in Houston’s wound.

“Did Dennis call 911?”

“He’s doing it now.” Christian’s voice sounded a little faint as he sat there, uncertain.

“Get me a shirt or a towel or something so we can apply pressure to the wound. I’m losing too much blood. The bite must have nicked an artery since I don’t see a large amount of flesh loss. I’ll also need you to press on my hip, at the pressure point, holding the artery against the bone to staunch the flow of blood.”

He forced the words past his lips, his vision swimming, head rolling. His ears were ringing and he was starting to worry he might go into shock, which seemed like an overreaction- and downright embarrassing for a surgeon to do.

Christian turned around and shouted, and in seconds there was a shirt being pressed against his leg and someone was squeezing his thigh.

Houston fought to stay lucid and in control, focusing on the dusky deepening sky behind Christian’s shoulder as he sucked in a hard breath. Creeping wet cold crawled over him, dragging a shudder out of him.

“Harder,” he told Christian, letting his eyes shut briefly so he could stop the sky from spinning. “And put something over my chest. I’m cold.”

A towel was thrown over him, kicking sand into his eyes and mouth, which he didn’t have the energy to wipe away. “Crap. Thanks a lot, guys.”

Christian laughed, his voice ending in a hitch. “Just hang on there, buddy, we’ll get you taken care of.”

The world was starting to retreat. Houston was feeling woozy, the pain in his leg receding into numbness. It was too much effort to keep his eyes open, so he gave up. “You’d better or Kori will never forgive you. Who else would she fix all her single friends up with?”

Then everything went black.

 

This scene is ©2004 by Erin McCarthy - All Rights Reserved
It is an unpublished excerpt from HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Kensington Brava/Mass Market Reprint November 2005
Order a Copy!