TheBlackberryAlarmclock.com

Thingish Things

We’re All Going to Die!

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Mar• 29•12

A cousin wrote a prescient novel a few years back that introduced an idea whose day may be nearing. It was called Boomsday and it satirized the now arrived era when baby boomers retire in overwhelming numbers and young Americans get stuck with their bills for Social Security and Medicare. The solution in the novel? Americans pledging to off themselves at some predetermined age in exchange for generous tax breaks during their most productive years. Interesting concept.

I may very well have signed such as pact as I walked into a medical appointment yesterday for the first time in too many years, according to the health care industry anyway.  There I sat with droves of elderly Americans handing over their last saved dollars, and the dollars of others, for every conceivable medical procedure, 100% of which will fail in the end. Everyone in the waiting room, including me, has a fatal condition called life, and all the money in the world cannot overcome it for long.

I walked out of my appointment with a fistful of referrals.  (How can someone so young and vibrant have so many problems?) I have an umbilical cord to be surgically fixed (try and find me for that one), a full-body skin cancer screening,  a MRA brain scan (I know, I know…), an eye doctor’s appointment, and an approaching-50 fanny procedure that may induce me, ala Boomsday, to choose 49 as my exit scenario, providing I can get a healthy lump-sum tax rebate.  Bora Bora or a scope in the ol’ you-know-what…? It’s really not a tough call.

What is it about life that makes us all want to hold onto it so dearly, even when we are re-diapered? What brings us to the counters of medical mills, open wallets in hand, willing to trade the fruits of a lifetime for a few extra moments of O2?  I suppose air is sweet, and it must grow sweeter with every passing day.  Because there at the counter, probably will go I in 30 years — unless I can knock off, say, 18% of my marginal tax rate beginning…now.

Boomsday.  It was ahead of its time.  At 10 bucks on Amazon, it’s a steal.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Comments

  1. Me says:

    Umbilical cord? Oh, Billy…

    I’d be curious to know how that was discovered at this late date.

    Yes to all the others! (And then I can crib off your results and not go myself.)

Leave a Reply to Bill O'Reilly Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.