On the way back from Tim Hortons^TM I was almost run down by a short bus. Paratranspo to be exact. While I proved nimble enough to avoid it, the near miss was harrowing on several levels. Aside from the universal aversion to being run over, there was a flash awareness of the ancillary negatives of being laid low by this particular vehicle; the intolerable irony of my body being mangled by the chariot of the lame. And how I could feel their crippled shameful joy, that I might soon be amongst them…like a crew of damned and handicapable pirates (1) eager to pressgang me into eternal servitude, shackled to an oar.

Worse still, were I to die, was the awareness that the colorfulness of my death would fuel decades of sick humor amongst my friends and ill wishers (2). I could hear their smug, winking, conversations at my funeral:

“Oh did you hear how it happened? He was run down by a short bus when he darted across the street for no reason. Tragic that he couldn’t dodge a transport driven by a retard(3); some athlete he was.”

Then they would laugh and try and disguise it as a mournful sob.

The whole thing brought to mind how important it is to die in the least dignity stripping way manageable. As a courtesy, between friends, I present you the Ignominious Death Scale. That you might arrange your own demise accordingly.

0– Peacefully choking to death, at the venerable age of 87, while eating a delicious piece of toast.

1- Retrieving stuck toast in an unsafe fashion.

2- Getting gunned down during an unsuccessful bank robbery.

3- Falling down an escalator while waving at an unexpected friend walking by. (4)

4- A lifestyle induced heart attack you knew was coming

5- Fracturing skull with homemade nunchucks.

6- Rupturing your stomach trying to get money’s worth from buffet.

7- Being mauled by a Panda you thought you could take because it’s not a real Bear. (5)

8- Taking a unsupportable lie way too far : ie, “I can easily jump that 20ft distance between these two buildings. I did Parkour for three years when I lived in Vancouver.”

9- Any cause of death that was repeated warned of by your older sister. (6)

10- Getting thrown from a boxcar by elitist Hobo’s who could never accept you as one of there own.

11- Being rundown by a short bus.

12- Slipping into an anaphylactic coma because you’re allergic to something gay, like Peanuts (7) or Wheat.

13- Passing out from Quaaludes and being devoured by your morbidly obese and purring cat.

14- Getting slashed up by the new pimp you girls secretly hooked up with…even though you only ever took your fair share and never brought the hand down unless you had to.

15- Daring god to strike you down and the motherfucker following through on it. (8)

16- Suicide over losing a girl you dated for a week.

17- Being rectally impaled by anything…because you are not getting the posthumous benefit of the doubt.

18- Getting your head stuck in a banister and starving to death. (9)

19- Dying of an incredibly lame disease which is then named after you : Ie Shriveled penis spontaneous defecation syndrome aka.Valliantitis.

20- Crying so hard during your unexpected appearance on “To catch a predator” you have an aneurysm.

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(1)Pirates were actually my first exposure to the handicapped…which may explain my dread of them. As a young man media of all sorts made it clear to me that if you lost a hand or leg it was in the course of some nefarious deed, and your karmic due for being a brigand. Later in life Astar the robot tried to dissuade me of such thinking’s, at the behest of the Waramps…but I was distrustful of children who joined the army at such a precocious age.

(2)This is intolerably appropriate, given my own sense of humor.

(3)I realize they don’t actually let the retards drive the bus, but my friends are guileless and hideously intolerant.

(4)You at least have the satisfaction that they will be racked with guilt…unless it’s some unfathomably well planned hit.

(5)+1 if there are children at the Zoo exhibit witnessing your defeat. +2 if the Panda showboats for the crowd.

(6)In my case this includes: Chewing on Leggo pieces, jumping off the roof, eating too fast, reading in the dryer, and hiding under parked cars.

(7)Man, when I was a kid no one was allergic to Peanuts…and if someone had been, we would have shamed the allergy out them. Even a semi respectable sensitivity, like Bees, was treated with a prescription of “Step lively if you see a fucking Bee”.

(8)Double if you’re Buddhist.

(9) This is currently the 7^thmost likely eventual cause of death for me

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Assessment Scales

Rob Ford Transgression

 Irony

 Ignominious death

 Shame