I know exactly when I first thought of having a living will. It was Christmas Eve, and my siblings and I were voting on whether or not to let my mother die. At this point, Mom had terminal ovarian, lung, lymph and brain cancer; had several crushed vertebrae that resulted in paralysis, not to mention bed pneumonia and acute claustrophobia; had just had her second heart attack; and showed no brainwaves from the depths of her Christmas coma.
Should we put her on extreme life-support? The decision was a slam-dunk.
The vote went 3-2.
In a situation that could only be more hopeless and more obvious if Mom were also decapitated, two siblings actually voted to keep my mother's lungs pumping at any cost. Theirs was an emotional, not moral decision. They wanted their mother alive, no matter the suffering it caused.
3-2. For me, the moment would forever epitomize selfish cruelty and moral weakness.
And it was the moment I decided to take the decision out of my family's hands. They cannot be trusted to put my interests above their own. I therefore entrusted my plug to friends and girlfriends, finally settling on the one the person in the world most inclined to pull it: my ex-girlfriend.
"Can I pull it now?" she asks. "How about now?"
She has to spread my ashes over Heinz Field, too. My will even provides for her fines.
Allie's drowning with work this week, so naturally I call her every half-hour or so with updates about what the FoxNews ticker says ("THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS: Is it hurting our children?") and about my health. The day she gets Caller-ID at work, it's all over.
"My left eye is twitching," I'll say.
"Mmm hmm."
"It's making me nuts."
"I bet."
"What do you think it is?"
"Yeah."
"I think it's a heart attack."
"It's not a heart attack."
"It's a prelude to a heart attack, then. I'm gonna keel over on Football Weekend next week, just like I always wanted. It'd force Bubba to carry my corpse from stadium to stadium, plopping it in the seat next to him."
"Hey!" she said, perking up. "If you go to Pittsburgh, that would save me from having to dispose of you!"
Damn, that's cold. "I'll just tell Bubba to toss me in the trash on his way out of the stadium."
"Why trouble him? He can just leave you under his seat, with the beer cups and gnawed chicken bones."
This fate appeals to me way, way more than it should. Way.