Checking out the best ways to check out
Joyce, who identified herself as a faithful reader, was initially confused by the recent column I wrote about self-checkouts.
“When I read the headline ‘What’s the best way to check out?’ she emailed, “I, being an octogenarian, got excited to find out the best way to ‘shuffle off this mortal coil,’ since it is often on my mind anymore. Alas, you were referring to checking out of a store and not of this world ... But if you ever do learn the best way to ‘check out’ of this world, please write a column about it.”
Unfortunately, I don’t even know what a coil is, much less how best to shuffle it off. But I hate to disappoint a faithful reader, so I turned to Google for wisdom.
One site mentioned examples of people who added a little life to their deaths with witty obituaries, including:
Douglas Legler of Fargo, North Dakota, who wrote his own two-word obituary: “DOUG DIED.”
When Mary Anne Alfriend Noland passed away in Virginia, her obit related, “Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne chose to pass into the eternal love of God.”
And Ohioan Scott Entsminger’s final request was, “six Cleveland Browns pall bearers so the Browns can let me down one last time.”
Then I found something called Cake, which claims to be “the largest funeral and end-oflife platform on the Internet.” It related the example of a woman who contacted it wanting to know “how much would it annoy the guests at her funeral if she requested that her favorite album, ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix,’ be played on loop?” (Having spent my entire life annoying people, I see no reason not to continue after I’ve left the building. So if you attend my farewell, I hope you love, “Grandma
Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”)
Cake sidetracked me to YouTube, where “AskAMortician” answers questions such as, “is it legal to mummify your cult leader?” I never learned the answer, though, because when I clicked again it called up a constipation commercial. With video.
So I flushed YouTube and surfed to an ad for FreeWill, which said it can help you write your own will. (I called that one up and discovered it even had information that would show me how to leave $100,000 to my dog. I’ll keep that in mind if I ever get a dog. Or $100,000.)
I’m not sure if any of those ideas are helpful, Joyce.
But, as for me, my thoughts on the matter were basically summed up by noted philosopher Kenny Rogers, who advised, “The best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.”