Death and Taxes? You Haven't Met My Accountant.

I was chatting with some colleagues yesterday and the conversation turned to mountain lions. I mentioned that I know someone who considers being eaten by mountain lions the best of all possible ways to shuffle off this mortal coil. One of my colleagues said that he would prefer to walk off a cliff while hiking and be taken completely by surprise by the grim reaper. Each to his own I replied, adding that I had absolutely no interest in dying in a manner which would lead people to say "it was such a shock" or "at least he kept his dignity".

When I die I hope I will be ancient, in my own bed, half in the bag, and covered in crumbs from a meat pie. I want about 5 minutes warning so I can rattle off something witty and foul for my last words then its one last bite of the pie, a swig of rum, and then splat.

No "live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse" for me, thank you no. Instead, I propose we amend that trope to "live at a decent trot, die old, and leave a corpse a vulture would think twice about".

When I die, think only this of me:


And that is about as deep as my musings on metaphysics go, I'm afraid.