I am of an age where the occasional acquaintance of my vintage inconveniently dies, and not in a firefight with Colombian rebels or by driving his Ferrari into a wall at 180 mph. No, I am now entering the twilight years where death can come at any time in a variety of unpleasant forms.
Personally, I don’t worry about this. I would be extremely pissed off to depart any time soon; but you never know what is round the corner (possibly an old idiot in a Ferrari driving too fast) and there is not a lot I can do about it. I just ensure that my days are filled with good living, prayer and contemplation and leave the rest to fate.
Not so she who must be obeyed. She is a professional worrier and oft expresses concern that I will bugger off before she does, and then who will she have to fill her days with ridicule and scorn? She also worries about herself. It only takes the death of a Thai celebrity or something she sees on the web, and then she is away on an orgy of disease-filled doubt. Worst of all is when she discovers something on her body that shouldn’t be there, as happened this week.
I have a lump under my armpit, look!
It looks like a spot.
No, no, it’s a lump; feel it.
Do I have to, I mean I love you and all, but I don’t want to stick my finger in your armpit?
Feel it!!
OK, OK. Yes there is a small lump; probably an infection from a blocked pore (which is pretty much what the doctor said it was today before giving an antibiotic injection, a bag of pills and a bill for 900 baht).
I don’t want to die.
You’re not going to die, at least not from this.
I don’t want to die.
You’re not going to die, at least not for a long time and probably on the same day as me (this usually makes her feel better).
But I want to die normally.
What does that mean?
I want to die of normal things and not die of a horrible disease.
What sort of normal things are there that you could die of?
(She thinks a while) Toothache!
At this point I could not continue the conversation due to giggling; so I just replied with “blog post”!
Comments 🔗
2011-09-17| Wally saysI want to die sleeping peacefully, like my grandma; not screaming with horror like those, who were the passengers in her car………
2011-09-19| Barry saysThe possibility of an unexpected death can be a sobering thought. Last month I managed to come down with severe food poisoning, I’m sure the result of something I ate in a certain national air carrier’s lounge, which was diagnosed at a country hospital as bronchitis (despite me having none of the symptoms). A couple of days later I woke up to fact that the doctor involved probably qualified for his job simply by buying a white coat and checked myself into a private hospital who made the correct diagnosis and told me IU could have been dead in two or three days. Like you, I’m not ready for the long sleep. At least my experience wasn’t as bad as a friend of mine, whose heart attack was diagnosed as indigestion. There is a moral here - do not, ever, go to a country hospital in Thailand.
2011-09-19| genuinej saysI suppose death in childbirth is quite a long shot. I am reminded of the woman so terrified of dentists that she told her own that she’d rather have a baby than her teeth attended to. His reply was that she needed to make up her mind quickly, as he’d have to adjust the chair.