10 Ways I Would Prefer To Die Since It Has To Happen Anyway
- Winning a Tater Tot eating contest – but paying the ultimate price (an exploded stomach, which is cheaper in Eastern Europe) for my success.
- Stroke or heart attack or some other lethal failing of my body as a result of having too many orgasms.
- That feeling when you’re having a really good day and you’re already in the best mood and you’re driving with the windows down and your favorite song comes on and you’re singing and you’re dancing in your seat and generally radiating such huge, happy energy that you feel like your brain and heart and guts are going to explode – and then they do. That would be an okay way to go.
- A knife fight with Carmen Sandiego. At least it means I found her wily ass.
- Puppies literally licking all my skin off while they’re making squeaky, adorable “Sorry bout this but we really love you!” puppy barking sounds.
- Someone accidentally tearing my carotid artery while biting my neck during a particularly heated make-out sesh.
- Space tragedy.
- Telling a gunman to shoot me instead of a loved one. Like, ideally he would be so moved by witnessing such an act of human selflessness that he would reconsider shooting anyone at that moment, and hopefully reconsider shooting people in general, and maybe rethink his position on gun control, and run for office and really affect significant, positive social change on a policy level, and would henceforth warm hearts with the tale of how his wayward life of murderous crime was halted and rerouted after seeing me offer myself up to be gunned down instead of, like, my sister or whoever. But I guess if none of that happened and he was just like “Whatevs, fine” and shot me dead, at least people would remember me as a brave and pretty good-looking person (“Yeah, what a fuckin’ hero, and not bad looking as I remember her.”) I’ll be known by history as “Big Britches Blankenship”.
- Falling into a volcano that had suddenly opened along a fault line in the middle of a major city (yes) because my son, my sister, and the man I love are all dangling from the edge of a fiery pit. Knowing I can’t save them all and unable to choose, I jump to a rocky ledge just below them, knowing it can only hold me for a few seconds before crumbling and carrying me to my death, and in the 20 seconds before it falters and falls, I give all three of them the boost they need to surmount the edge to safety. I mean, goddamn, dying in lava sounds like a bummer. Still, being able to stare into the grateful, loving eyes of my favorite people as I plummet after doing some last-minute (literally) problem solving is satisfying enough for this to make the list.
- Find out I have an inoperable brain tumor that will produce increasingly vivid hallucinatory symptoms – visual, auditory, and sensory disturbances, but really beautiful ones; wild dreams – until I eventually die, which will happen in 7-10 days. Fly to Paris. Go here on a clear, sunny Tuesday morning, when it will be almost completely devoid of visitors. Lie down in the middle of this giant bowl. Look at the sky as it becomes increasingly polluted with the chaotic manifestations of my tumor-addled brain. Listen to the sounds I hear and try half-heartedly, with pleasant disinterest, to guess which ones are actually occurring and which are my tumor lulling me to sleep. Be lulled to sleep. Leave note pinned to shirt that says “Sorry but this is a real nice place ya got here.”