The Funny Thing About Death

I never understood why people fear mortality.

What’s the point in being afraid of the inevitable? I mean, if you’re going to be afraid of bad company you can’t reschedule, be afraid of in-laws and the IRS. Leave the grim reaper out of it. He’s just doing his job, and business is good when you consider that mortality rates were up last year.

This thought occurred to me- death- whilst enjoying my every other day half hour run. Thirty minutes, three miles and change, the perfect Zen. Now, thinking about death is way different than being afraid to die. Thinking about death is something I do every day, several times a day. It usually pays a visit inside my lighter moments.

Of course, death isn’t all fun and games. There are certain methods of cosmic transportation that do not butter my bread. so a list of ways in which death would truly suck? Yeah, I just so happen to have such a list.

Ventilators- Nope.

Shark Attack- Sharks are majestic, but so is the St. Patrick’s Cathedral and I wouldn’t want to be impaled by one of its spires.

Plane Crash- Every time a plane crash happens, some aviation expert will let us know it’s far more likely we’ll die after slipping in the bathtub than die in a plane crash. Yeah but last time I looked, my bathtub wasn’t forty thousand feet above the ground.

Dying in the audience during “Live with Kelly Ripa and _____”- I would sooner hurtle to earth in a plane while hooked up to a ventilator, after which I survive the impact only to be devoured by sharks.

When my half hour run was in the books I decided to treat myself, which isn’t a regular occurrence for yours truly. The problem with this brilliant fucking idea is that I quit most of the stuff I used to treat myself to. Like painkillers, day drinking and smokes.

Meanwhile, mi mama is on the road to recovery after having tangoed with mortality a couple months ago. She lived to tell the tale, even if the telling is sometimes in the form of bitching and moaning about her physical therapy. So it was that I summoned a little Mickey Goldmill on the drive to her latest session and once she aced that shit? I treated her (us) to McDonalds.

McDonalds is truly every once in a while for me and it won’t be a regular occurrence for the old gal either, but in the moment it was a pretty brilliant fucking idea. Which got me thinking happier thoughts. And that’s when my list of ways to die that don’t suck quite so much came to me.

Because of course I have one . . .

Skydiving- The only problem is my intense fear of heights. In order for me to die while skydiving, I would have to be drugged and then thrown off a plane. But I’m willing to try it so long as the drugs are really, really good.

Competitive Eating Contest- It would serve me right to get strangled by a five-pound bacon cheeseburger with all the fixings. I’ve wasted enough time watching these marathon masticators do their thing while making light of it that I probably deserve such a fate, as long as caramelized onions are an accessory.

As breakfast for a Bengal tiger- I only romanticize such a thing because of Yann Martel, but it still counts. And besides, I would lose consciousness within thirty-seconds, tops. Sure it would be the longest thirty seconds of my life, but it sure as hell beats thirty minutes of Ripa.

An explosion in a distillery- I get to take it with me!

Being impaled by a spire from St. Patrick’s Cathedral- Alright, I thought about it some and yanno . . it would be a pretty cool way to buy the boat.

Yann Martel once wrote that death fell in love with the beauty of life, and that’s why it stalks it. And I think that if I’m willing to allow a Bengal tiger to macchiato my ass into the ever after, there’s gotta be some truth to that idea.

I betcha Ryan Seacrest would agree.