COLUMN: Dying is easy, so I’m going to do it twice
The 1922 German horror film Nosferatu begins with possibly one of the most iconic quotes in movie history, where the hometown mad man approaches our hero Jonathan Harker and dramatically proclaims “Wait young man, you can’t escape destiny by running away!”.
All right, I admit it. The quote isn’t iconic at all. Not to mention people couldn’t act in the 1920s. They just ran around $15 cardboard Hollywood sets and pretended they were making a movie.
That’s not the point, though. The point is the quote is a wonderful recognition of the fact that we can’t escape our responsibilities in life. Instead, we have to face our hardships and overcome them. You can’t escape by just running away.
But I think I can.
My junior year of college is already tearing me down. Deadlines for Central Michigan Life, classes, internships, leases and academics are piled so high that I can no longer pretend that they’re just not there. Meanwhile, at home, my mother and father continue to live out their perfect existence by pointlessly carrying out the same routine day after day after day in a successful rendition of the American Dream. Not to mention that all happiness probably consists of delusion — and my bathroom flooded last Sunday.
It’s enough for me to take my crummy 1995 Ford Taurus and drive it at 95 miles per hour off a cliff, plummeting it hood-first into the ragged rocks below where the car probably wouldn’t explode. Because that only happens in the movies.
No, fairly distressed reader, I’m not talking about suicide. I’m talking about pulling off the greatest feat known to man since Hayden Christensen got through all-three Star Wars prequels without getting canned.
After seriously considering it for a little more than 15 minutes, I have decided that I’m going to fake my own death.
It would be pretty simple. My “body” would roll out of the car into a conveniently-placed pool of white water rapids, which will carry my corpse into a large pool of water, where rescue workers will work day and night trying to find a body that isn’t there.
Little did anyone know that I expertly jumped out of the car at the last second, into a conveniently placed grove of bushes and walked away from the tragic scene unharmed.
At which point, I would do all the things you want to do, but can’t because you have a life. I would drink a 144-pack of beer while watching every Star Trek episode in a row. I would travel the world, hold a public debate with the Dalai Lama on why men shouldn’t wear towels, sky dive off the Eiffel Tower, go down Niagara Falls in a barrel. Or, even more impressive, I’ll go up Niagara Falls in a barrel.
Because hell, you only live once. Oops, I mean twice.
Then there would be the act of attending my own funeral. A funeral is where you find out who you really are, the local legend who stuffs the church with enough grieving individuals to fill a Nicholas Sparks novel, or more probably, the poor soul whose family attends the funeral, and that’s it.
But fair warning: There will be an additional participant at my funeral, and that will be me. And I’ll be checking names. I’ll know who my real friends are. And if you don’t attend, don’t be surprised to find your own bathroom flooded. That would be me as well. I accidentally turned your shower head on, and pointed it at your bathroom floor.
Moral of the column: When I die, don’t grieve. For I’ll be in heaven.
And I don’t mean the afterlife. I mean I’m going to be in Hawaii, sipping on margaritas and checking out babes in bikinis.
Because there are only two ways to solve an existential crisis. Alcoholic beverages and bikinis.
