Since this year was really tough in terms of washouts and lost business, I decided to economize where I could. So when my $300 liability insurance policy came up for renewal this past September, I didn't renew it. I figured that for most of the rest of the year, I'd be doing inside shows (Xmas and Chanukah bazaars), so what could possibly go wrong?

Yesterday I found out. I've been using a small stepstool in front of my joint for almost five years now, for the littler kids to stand on so they could see the pitch better (and attract even more people in the process). I never had a problem until yesterday, when a kid was getting off the stepstool and it apparently slid out from under him. He fell backward and landed right on his butt, on a hard linoleum floor. Fortunately, he was more surprised and shaken up than hurt. But he also could have cracked his tailbone or smacked his head against the floor. And I would have been "up the creek without a paddle," as they say.

So the moral of the story is this: if you want to sleep good at night, buy the darn liability insurance. At about $1 a day for $3 million dollars in coverage, it's the cheapest sleep aid there is. SETH