About The Tick Tock

Monday, July 25, 2050

Mark that day down in your organizers, palm pilots and diaries babes. According to The Death Clock (http://www.deathclock.com), which I found thanks to Jaime, that's the day I'm going to die.

I'll be 72.

Gack.

I don't want to die at 72. Not that I've given dying much thought, mind you, but when it has crossed my mind, I always reckoned that I'd pass on at the age of 60. With my faculties and all of my body parts - be they naturally saggy or surgically-enhanced perky - still intact. Haha!

I'm not really afraid of death, as in the actual physical bit where your heart stops beating, your brain stops working, blah blah blah... And though the not knowing what happens after has given me some bad moments, that doesn't really freak me out either.

What really scares me is the thought of being old, decrepit, sick and senile. I don't want to be 1 of those crazy old biddies living in a musty, creaky house with 16 cats and no family... Or 1 of those cranky, paranoid geriatrics who drive their sons and daughters to distraction because they can't stop complaining... Or 1 of those poor souls who end up waiting to die as their minds slowly waste away from Alzheimer's...

More importantly, I don't want to be alone. The way I see it, the older you get, the less people you have around you. Especially in this day and age, when nobody I know plans to leave a "clan" of kids behind as their "legacy". So you start by watching your parents go... Then your partner... Your siblings... Your friends...

So as selfish as this sounds, life is 1 game of "Mad Magazine" that I desperately want to win. I want to be the 1st to lose all my money, throw in the towel and call it quits. Come the day I start rolling the dice with Alfred E. Neuman, I want it to be a quick, crazy, hysterically funny ride to the finish line.

Death I can deal with. It's drawn out suffering, grief or loneliness that I can't handle.