When I die, I want to die in a car and I want to die loudly. I don't wanna take anyone with me and I don't want to be battered so badly that only a dentist will know if it's me for sure. I also don't want to die stupidly, like because I was battling ennui or something like that.
I'm hoping to die while swerving to avoid a moose.
Perhaps brake failure.
Something unfortunate, but not my fault.
And I want to die with a great song on the radio; a defining song. Something that will be highly ironic when my family and friends are told what was in the cd player when my car flipped over the guard rail.Something like Skid Row's "Youth Gone Wild," or "No Surrender" by Bruce Springsteen or The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." I don't want the EMT guy yanking my corpse from the car with the final piano crescendo of "Tiny Dancer" lilting in the background. "Tiny Dancer "is a fine song and something that I very well might be listening to while driving, but it's not what I want my final musical statement to be.
For better or for worse Johnny Cash inadvertently defined his entire life by covering a Nine Inch Nails song and I have to admit that a large part of me feels uncomfortable with that.
Making the wrong statement at the moment of my death is one of my greatest fears.
Top Five Inexplicably Neurotic Fears:
1) Sneezing so violently while driving that, in the two seconds I am incapacitated from the sneeze, I hit someone and kill them instantly. I would get charged with manslaughter and have to explain to everyone that I am only a killer because of hay fever.
2) Plugging anything into the wall socket in my bathroom. I've never been electrocuted before. Admittedly, I don't really know how it works, but there's so much condensation in the air and three recepticles for water (tub, toilet, sink)... it just seems inevitable to dip the hairdryer chord into the sink and fry myself.*
I can't imagine what the person who invented battery-powered shaving razors were thinking.
3) Accidentally putting metal in the microwave. Look, I know that metal and nuclear heat boxes do not a good duo make, but every once in a while, I forget that the metal handles on Chinese food cartons are metal or that there is a foil lining underneath my tray of chicken nuggets...
...What I'm saying is sometimes it slips my mind and I'm constantly nervous of having to do a Mission:Impossible headroll off my balcony.
4) Flooding. I don't mean flooding as in "natural disaster," I mean flooding as in my pant legs. This isn't lethal, or in any way important, but I hate it. I'm a tall guy and no matter what size pants I buy, I always seem to flood when I sit down. I've taken to buying expensive socks just to offest my embarrassment for not allowing my cuffs to join my ankles while in a seated position. It's a sharp little pang of fear every single time I take a seat. It's kinda like an insignificantly personal little hell.
5) Failing to preemptively tie up the loose ends that my death might cause before I ever actually die. I'm not suicidal... not at all. I'm not dying anytime soon (that I know of; I've gotta at least make it until the end of The Sopranos season), but I am depraved enough to think about hypotheticals.
What if I careen off a cliff and die on impact, and at that moment, Led Zeppelin's "Rock 'n' Roll" is playing? But "Rock 'n' Roll" is only 4:30 minutes long. I bet the ambulance wouldn't get there until "Rock 'n' Roll" was over. What would the next song be?
I don't know.
You see? Once I'm dead, I've got no say in anything - including the song that the paramedics find on my stereo when they arrive. What if Lesley Gore comes on next? My God, the poor policemen would not only have to tell my parents that I'm dead, but that I died listening to Judy's Turn To Cry!
I don't have any control over that. I can't even insure that the radio will still be working properly by the time someone finds me. Which would probably cause you to wonder why, if such minutea concerns me so, would I still want to die in a wreck as opposed to, say, silently in my sleep amongst my things; a haven of my own personality?
That's a good question and I'm happy you're so engaged in my worries to be asking such thoughtful inqueries. Peaceably in my sleep is not how my 25-year-old persona dictates that I should go.
I'm James Dean dammit, rolling down a country road in a silver Spyder.
Again, I'm not suicidal. I don't wanna die. But, if I'm going to die - I wanna make it count. So barrel-rolling off a country highway going 88 mph with Patti Smith's "Rock and Roll N---er" blaring out from under the shards of crushed windowframe, is how I morbidly picture it happening.
I've also been lost in various attempts at picturing how the news of my demise might travel. I always assumed I'd die away from my family, despite that I've heard most accidents happen within 25 miles of the victim's homes. But these days, information lends itself to traveling mere moments after an incident occurs. I almost always carry i.d. with me, so they'd have a simple enough time contacting my parents first.
Now since, I don't live near my parents, they'd fly out (with my sister) to wherever my body was. While doing so, they'd call my only living grandparent (Bubby, whom you met in a previous blog entry). But my mother's mom is the last person of important people in that chain, so we've still got a lot of people to break the news to.
My dad would most likely call his sister, who would no doubtedly relay the message to my cousins and great aunts and great uncles and various friends of the family from my dad's side.
But what about my buddies and roomates and old college friends and ex-girlfriends and bosses? Oooo... that's where the tree branches split most erratically.
I've gotta believe that my sister would start the ball rolling with this. If my mom and dad are busy grieving (I hope) and telling their closest family members about me, my sister would probably think to notify my best friends from back home in The Chi. She'd call Jason, Liz and Emily (I'll let you decide if those are real names) and ask them to spread the news to all others in those circles.
But what about my Boston area friends? They're in a completely seperate group.
Do the paramedics or the police notify everyone or just the immediate family and let them take over? I don't know how this works. Would my roomates go four or five or six days just wondering what the hell happened to me? Leaving voice mail after voice mail on a phone that might very well be covered in blood and secured in a Zip-Loc bag as part of the "deceased's belongings"? And who, of the people I care about would never be formally contacted? Who might get forgotten, eventually carrying a grudge against me because I never call anymore.
Hating me for a year before someone in-the-know randomly informs them that I died a year ago? **
Anyway, If my roomates get notified, that would take care of everyone in Boston. We're all kinda swimming in the same social pool, so within a week my death would be Code Blue conversation fodder.
"Hey, what's going on?"
"Didja hear, Adam totally died on Thursday." ***
"Yeah, I heard. Crazy. When did you find out?"
"Yesterday."
"Wierd, I heard three days ago."
At this point, my friends would no longer be discussing my death, but embark in a tortuous journey on why Person A found out about my death two days before Person B. Jealousy would ensue.
Was it because I was better friends with Person A? Was it something Person B did?
But that's like, totally their hangup. I'm dead. It's not my problem.
"I've known Adam for five years, his roomates too. Why did it take six days for me to find out?"
"I was just at the house when his roomate was making calls - that's how I found out."
"Wait. Sunday? Where was I? No one called me on Sunday."
"We thought you were out of town."
"No. I was here. I was totally here. I sat at home watching reruns of '8th & Ocean.'"
"Sorry. we weren't thinking straight. We were kinda shaken up on accout of Adam being dead."
"Whatever."
"And on account that Barry Manilow was playing on his radio when he crashed."
"Barry Manilow? Adam was listening to Barry Manilow when he died?"
"Yeah. He must have been in a deep sort of depression."
I don't know what my bigger fear is: having my friends mistakenly think I'd ever listen to Barry Manilow, or having friends who would ever have a conversation like this one.
"Barry Manilow, dude? Well, at least he didn't die listening to Belle & Sabastian."
Good point, Fake-Made-Up-Dialogue-Friend: Belle & Sabastian would be my biggest fear about dying in car and listening to one last song.
*** *** *** ***
* Not that I'd ever use a hair dryer. That'd be vain and unmanly.
** If I had to guess, I'd guess Frank. Frank's kinda flighty. Frank, in all likliehood, is going to miss my funeral. Dammit Frank, with that infernal constant chip on your shoulder!
*** I've always had an inkling that I'd die on a Thursday.
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