When Show Tunes Kill

In the waning moments of the eight year old's birthday party, I was lamenting that I had missed seeing "Fiddler on the Roof" on PBS that evening. Not that I would have missed the party or any part of it for anything, but I felt a pang for a time when I knew all the words.
Walking out of the Basemar Cinemas (where there were two movie theaters right next to each other - the wave of the future!) after seeing "Fiddler" with my family I was obsessed with the show-stopping nature of "If I Were a Rich Man." I strutted out into the parking lot, snapping my fingers and kicking up imaginary straw as I did the best Tevye that any nine year old could. So caught up in the moment, I did not notice the car bearing down on me from around the corner. "If I were a squished lad..." The tune stays on my MP3 player and I feel every breath and pause - but I don't dance so much.
It was around that same time that my parents took us all to a stage production of "Jesus Christ Superstar." It was a chilly night in downtown Denver that I emerged from the theater, singing "Herod's Song" and sashaying out into yet another intersection. This time the car swerved to miss me as I contemplated the existence of God. What was he trying to tell me about musicals? Maybe something more secular would have gotten me in less trouble - or maybe it was just eerie coincidence.
A few years later, a car did catch up to me - only this time it wasn't show tunes, it was college football. The fate I had avoided so narrowly in those musical moments was now dropped on me like a Volvo station wagon. I can only imagine that I would have been safe if I had been singing "The Impossible Dream."