From zombies to jellyfish: The many pop culture-inspired deaths of yours truly

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I must be getting old because all I can seem to think about these days is death.

Yeah this is going to be another one of those entries, so if a rambling diatribe about mortality isn’t what you’re looking for in a weekend, you might want to duck out now. It’s fine. I’ll just tell myself you’re going to the bathroom and you’ll be right back.

So I’ve been reading “The Hunger Games” recently and watching “Six Feet Under.” Come to think of it, maybe the reason I’m thinking about death so much isn’t because I’m getting old and gray, but because of my pop culture selections.

Maybe I need to spend some time with The Wiggles.

Anyway, so reading “The Hunger Games” in particular got me thinking about how I would go out if I were squaring off against 23 other tributes in a politically-orchestrated fight to the death.

And that quickly spread to how I would die in a variety of other pop culture scenarios.   

                One common theme? I’m pretty sure I’ll almost always die in the least glamorous, noble or interesting way possible. In a way that no one will remember or write songs about.

                If they do remember it, it will only be because the way I died was so stupid and pointless that parents will use it as a cautionary tale about the dangers of mediocrity.

                So here’s how I think I’d die:

• in a zombie apocalypse: I’d be involved in one of those fearsome car crashes you always see in horror movies right at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse.
• in The Hunger Games: Either my transport would crash on the way to the stadium or I'd eat poison berries while savaging for lunch on the first day. That’s silly, the real answer would be catastrophic heart attack the second my name is called at the Reaping.
• in Jaws: Easy. Allergic reaction to a jellyfish sting.
• in a Kaiju attack: The car I’m attempting to flee the scene in will be picked up by a Jaegger and used to smash a Kaiju in the face. Same applies for a battle between Godzilla and any other monster.
• on the Titanic: Food poisoning.
• in Game of Thrones: Dysentery. Maybe it would be on my way to the Red Wedding, maybe it would be while I’m wandering in the desert with the lovely Daenerys or in the cold with the equally lovely Jon Snow, but one thing is for sure: I would absolutely die pooping my ever-loving guts out.
• in Six Feet Under: I’d be killed while lifting something heavy after I refused to ask for help. Seems eerily plausible. My character wouldn’t influence the rest of the episode in any meaningful way.
• in Terminator 2: I’d walk into the bar from the beginning  of the movie right after Schwarzenegger kicked the shit out of all those bikers and then get killed by those very same bikers because they’ve suddenly got something to prove.
• in a slasher movie: I’d be the guy the slasher kills in order to steal his clothes. No relevance to the plot. Not because I was such a horn dog, fun loving druggie. Nothing personal. Just business.
• in any war ever: I’d be killed about twenty minutes after the war officially ended and about fifteen minutes before word about that fact reached wherever I was stationed.
• in The X-Files: A damaged alien spacecraft comes in for an emergency landing in the middle of the woods, crashing directly on the tent I’m sleeping in. By the time Mulder and Scully arrive, the ship has been repaired and flown off, making me look like some nut in the middle of the woods whose body just sort of caved in on itself. That leads Scully to believe some sort of previously unknown virus is at work.   
• in space: Hit by a tiny meteorite.
• in a Quentin Tarantino movie: I’d be sitting behind the character played by Quentin Tarantino. After Tarantino went on one of his trademarked, n-word-heavy monologues, several black men would walk up to me and, in a case of mistaken identity, beat me to death with my own shoes for using the offensive word. The second after I was dead, Tarantino’s character would jump in and announce it was he who said the word, but the black dudes would be totally cool with it, because, you know, he’s Quentin Tarantino. Dude’s friends with Sam Jackson.