I had a semi-conversation with a co-worker the other day about death. And by semi-conversation, I mean this:
Co-worker: The ninja report* is going to be the death of me yet.
Me: Really? I’m pretty sure road rage is going to be what gets me.
Admittedly my comment was completely off the cuff. But as I thought about it more, I realized that it was as close to a prediction as I could make about myself. I’m in pretty good shape, I don’t smoke, I exercise a lot, I eat ok (and plan on doing that better), I’m happy most of the time, etc, etc, etc, and there is no clear health hazard in my life. But then I thought I could do better, so I’ve come up with the Top 3 Ways That I’m Likely To Die:
1) Exposure-this is a fancy way of saying starving/freezing/eaten by a bear/trampled by a moose. Basically, I like to hike, and as soon as I finish with this whole ultimate frisbee thing, I’m going to start going camping or backpacking again. And I’m sure that silly little things like not having someone to go with won’t stop me from going by myself.
2) Road Rage-don’t get me wrong, I’m a great driver. I haven’t been in an accident since I was 15 and had only been driving for 2 months. But sooner or later I’m going to get angry at someone’s terrible driving and flip off the wrong person, and that person is going to try to run me off the road. Or stop next to me at a stoplight and pull out a gun. Or follow me home and then wire a bomb to my car’s brake lines.
3) Jealous Husband-HA! April Fool’s!
3) Cancer-just because there is no telling when or why someone might get cancer, I have to throw this out here. Plus I needed to link to this.
Other front-runners include: liver disease, lung cancer from second-hand smoke (thanks, M), rabid dog, or murder-suicide (not me, but my wife-I tend to attract crazy women).
And that’s all.
*”Ninja report” is a reference to How I Met Your Mother. Marshall is telling a story about some complicated legal brief he is working on when Ted stops him and says that they are already lost. So the suggestion is that Marshall just call it the Ninja Report and then it will be an interesting story again. Also, I’m not going to divulge work secrets on my blog.