The author is DEAD! (Not really, but when he is, here's what to do about it)

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I've been doing a lot of thinking about death recently. Not in the melodramatic, what does it all mean, where are we going sense, but more in the practical, what's going to happen to this hunk of meat I leave behind?

Maybe hunk is an exaggeration. Average-looking might be a better way to put it. 

So what's caused this?

Well, for one thing, I've been working my way through “Six Feet Under” since Christmas time and it’s safe to say that daily doses of that show for going on three months is more than enough to make you want to splash black paint on your windows, curl up into a ball and wait for the reaper to show up do his thing.

But more importantly, I've been to two funerals in the last month, well a funeral and a viewing. All of that got me thinking about how I want to go out when the time comes.

Or more accurately, what I want folks to do with me once my spirit has left the building.

And honestly, what better place than a blog about nothing to record my final and in no way legally binding wishes?

Perhaps one day when I kick the bucket, one of my great grandkids, or more likely a special investigator for the IRS, will find this sandwiched on here in between rants about RoboCop and briefly consider honoring my wishes. That is before they get to my thoughts onfist-bumps and realize great granddad or the taxpayer clearly hasn’t been in control of his faculties for some time and thus he should be ignored as much as possible.

                Whoever you are, here’s what needs to go down.

                Firstly, no life support. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go. 

                I don’t want to be buried, cremated, mummified or zombified. And above all else, I do not wish to be used as a posthumous prop by two young employees in any fashion, no matter how zany their antics may be.

                And I’d certainly not wish to be involved in any such action a second time.

                I’d like any usable parts of me to be divided up amongst those who could make use of them. If you desperately need a new appendix and mine turns out to be in great shape for some reason, have at it.

                You want a nice cushy and only slightly used pair of tonsils? You’ve come to right the place.

                Whatever the good living citizens of Earth don’t want to cut out of me and put into themselves, well that part can go to Science, with a capital s.

                I assume collecting bodies and injecting them with all kinds of chemicals and shampoos is still a thing that Science does, but admittedly I’m a little out of touch with that field.

                I don’t just want to get stuck in the ground somewhere or sprinkled out of a plane.

I’d like to think that someone somewhere is benefitting from me not being around anymore. I mean other than my dear friends and loved ones who will clearly benefit by not being around my sometimes grumbly, moody self anymore.

There can be a funeral if someone wants to throw one, but let’s not get carried away. Save the blue angel flyovers and pyrotechnics for Wrestlemania. Just a nice small thing in someone’s house. Maybe put “Terminator 2” on in the background while the few attendees make awkward conversation with each other about life and the weather.

As it stands right now, I’m weird about death. Maybe it’ll change one day, but these days I don’t visit my relatives’ graves. I don’t spend a lot of time obsessing over what I could have done differently with them.

                I’ll smile about the good times on occasion but that’s it.

                I guess others take solace in the ritual of going to a grave site, but I don’t see it. The person’s not there anymore and god-willing his or her spirit is hopefully not there anymore. The last place I’d want to see anyone spend even a second of their afterlife would be in the gloom of a cemetery.  

                But to each their own.

                That’s it. You have your directives, little Bobby or Cindy. Just know, whichever one you are, you were always my favorite great grandkid.  

                Or you, Mr. Thompson. I swear to you if you follow my wishes, your agency will get its money.  I was clearly very well off in life. I had an English degree from a state college. Also, look, I just want you to know you were always my favorite jack-booted government thug.