Exiting Stage Left

In this life there are many things we don't get to plan, chief among them our own deaths. However, that has never stopped us from pondering how we would go if we could choose, and so today after Mass, when a bunch of us went out to brunch, we somehow got on this topic. The ex-Marine and current cop Semper Fi mentioned that he would not want to die like Elvis, on the toilet, because that is not an honorable way to die. I said true, but the worst was the summer I was in Spain, and we went to the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Nobody was killed by the bulls, but two guys passed out in the middle of the road and were run over by the street cleaner in the early morning hours. "Not a tough way to go," I said. "Maybe if you were running from a psycho driving a street cleaner after you..."

"At half a mile an hour?" said A-Fooze.

"Maybe if one of them tripped..." I said.

"Still..." said A-Fooze.

"OK, maybe a steamroller, then," I suggested. "That would be a little tougher, being run over by a psycho driving a steamroller. Still, if you really want a tough death, you can hardly beat jumping out of one airplane to land on another airplane piloted by terrorists, sending it into a death spin."

"Right into the plane you were trying to save," said A-Fooze.

"I would want to die an honorable death," said Semper Fi. "A sword fight on top of a cliff is the kind of thing I would want."

"Mr. Icon wants to be martyred by a polar bear," I said. "He thinks that would make a fantastic icon."

"How could he be killed for his faith by a polar bear?" Rich wondered, and I shrugged.

"I dunno. Maybe it's a Moslem polar bear?"

"Being torn apart by wild animals would be better than ending up in a nursing home," said Semper Fi. "Maybe when I'm 95 I'll take a bus up to Alaska and find a bear cub to pet. That should take care of the problem."

"You, Mr. Icon, and Bella Maryella should take that bus together," I said. "She wants to get torn apart by wild animals too. Me, I'm hoping for 105 in my sleep. Or better yet, 135 on Good Friday, just after receiving the Eucharist. But all my kids and grandkids and great-grandkids and great-great-grandkids wouldn't notice I was dead until after the service was over."

"They could try to shake you awake," A-Fooze suggested, "and then you would fall over on the floor, like in the movies or something."

I had to point out that if it were a movie, I'd die at 135 on the beach at Acapulco and my great-great-grandkids would not want to pay to ship my body back to the States, so they would hide my body in a sleeping bag, and then when they stopped for lunch, someone would steal the car. Still, I like the falling on the floor idea. When I told Semper Fi that I had come up with my ideal death, he said, "Eating a ham sandwich on the train tracks in Bosnia and you can't hear the train coming," and I said, "You're so close, but no."

Famous Hat