Since I learned about the death of Steve Irwin, better known as "The Crocodile Hunter" or "That Aussie Git on TLC", I've been trying to think of something to say that was irreverent yet not terribly inappropriate. It's rather hard to do.

The general consensus among my group of friends is that the guy has been pushing his luck for years now. When he played with his newborn son in front of a crocodile in a show at the zoo, a lot of people reacted negatively. Of course, Irwin insisted he was in "complete control" of the situation and refused to apologize.

This is an important lesson; I hope you're ALL listening. You are never "in control of the situation". Control is an illusion we create to keep our puny human minds in a region of sanity. But there are only degrees of control, and those degrees are much slimmer margins that we'd like to admit. As Iain said about this incident, "If you roll the dice enough, eventually you'll roll a one."

So the next time someone tries to tell me, "It's okay, I'm in control," or "As long as you know what you're doing you're in total control," I will think of this and tell them firmly that they're deluding themselves. Sure, more often than not you'll get away with taking that risk. But the odd time you don't you may end up biting it and leaving your young child in a world with one less parent. So you should ask yourself, are you willing to gamble with that bet?