At first I thought the only halfway decent thing to
come out of the Terry Schiavo Tragedy was watching
all those grandstanding politicians choke on their own
bugles as they rear ended each other sounding retreat
on the freeway exit ramp to the Tampa/ St Pete airport
at Mach UII. But I was wrong.
Another positive side effect is the vast legions of
citizens awakened to the realization that we are
responsible for plotting their own deaths. Newspapers
are printing primitive but binding Living Wills next
to Hagar the Horrible. Which is good. Facing up to our mortality might force a few of us to understand there are more important things to life than which parties somebody was or wasn’t invited to and whose Zirconian replica of Paris Hilton’s dog’s collar looks realer.
Right now, most of the concerned introspective
muttering consists of chastened yuppies adamantly
professing their refusal to end up a vegetable. “I
guarantee that’s not going to be me. I refuse to live
like a rutabaga. If you love me at all, you’ll pull my
plug.” To these well meaning banana heads, I have one
thing to say: “Not me brother. Plug me in.”
I want to live. As man, vegetable or refreshing side
order of fruit salad with strawberry yogurt sauce.
Hell, I never thought I’d make it this far to begin
with. When I was a kid, anybody older than 30 was
withered ancient. A prehistoric geezer. A core sample
of archaic decay. But even then, I never bought into
that whole “hope I die before I get old” crap. And
now, I’m aiming for triple digits. A couple more
years? If that’s all you got, it’ll do fine. A month.
Part of a week. Cool. Cool. All I want is extra. I
want more.
You see, now that I made it this far, I kind of like
it. Puppies. Sunsets. Bases loaded, bottom of the
ninths. Large print Robert Crais mysteries. Jalapeno
flavored potato chips. Life is good. And I plan to
hang onto it with the tips of my fingernails. If the
only way to keep my respirator charged is by
fluttering my eyelids 24 hours a day, I will flutter.
Who knows what tomorrow’s scientists might come up
with? Maybe they’ll uncover a fountain of middle age.
A perpetual eyelid flutterer. Why do you think they
call it the future?
“So you’re content to linger like a vegetable?” Yeah.
Sure. Why not? What’s the big deal? So I’m Mr. Potato
Head. Like I wasn’t before. You think my soul will be
soiled beyond repair because someone referred to me as
the Brussels Sprout Boy? Soil me. Isolate a webcam on
my hospice bed and pay per view me as the Human
Asparagus Video Blog. Water me from a sprinkling hose.
Use my open mouth as a pencil cup and call me Shorty.
Test poisonous toad cosmetics on my tongue. Lend me
out as a large prone pin cushion at a Tattoo Arts
Convention. Fit me with scuba gear, bury me naked
with my butt sticking up and use it as a bicycle rack.
I don’t care. Let me live. That’s Will’s Living Will.
And if I do sink into a coma or become completely
brain dead, someone try and remember to hook me up to
an IV drip of pure caffeine, because I don’t want to
miss a thing.
Political comic Will Durst pretty much already has the
IV full of caffeine thing going for him. Catch Durst Thursday the 31st at the Purple Onion in
San Francisco or Friday, April Fool’s Day, at the
National Press Club in D.C.
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