By Mike Larson – So this week is the 100th Anniversary year of the Titanic sinking. Last night, I was sitting with a friend of mine at the café I hang out at, talking about how awful it must have been to die in this manner. My friend said, “That was an awful lot of people!”
I think we were both wondering why God would allow so many people to die in this way. And I said, “Well I think in heaven there will be information booths, forums that will be set up to answer all our earthly questions.
Of course me being me, I took it one step further and started thinking about all the stupid ways people die and why. I think that periodically there will be informational classes held called, “What was I thinking?” We could have guest speakers on topics such as, slipping on a banana peel. Or, Why did I have to wear that long scarf while riding in a convertible? I sometimes wonder what peoples’ dying last thoughts were while sitting on the toilet. Plop Plop…Oh Crap! Ok, I am being very morbid here but come on! We all wonder what it’s like when someone takes their last breath while doing something stupid!
Like the story of the man who threw the stick of dynamite to blow a hole in the ice pond so he could go fishing. I wonder what he thought when his Labrador ran after it and brought it back to him. Bad Dog…NOOOO!
Or when a 35-year old man died after being stabbed in the leg at a cockfight in Tulare County, California US, by one of the birds that had a knife attached to its limb. This gives it a whole other meaning to the quote, “Hen Pecked”!
In 1960: In the Nedelin catastrophe, more than 100 Soviet rocket technicians and officials died when a switch was accidentally turned on, causing the second stage engines of a rocket to ignite, directly above the fully fueled first stage where they were all standing looking up into the engine. The casualties included Red Army Marshal Nedelin, who was sitting just 40 meters away overseeing launch preparations. That’s a career ender! What was he thinking?! “Is it the red button or the green button?” How do you say ooops in Russian? Oopska?
In 1814: The London Beer Flood, 9 people were killed (some drowned, some died from injuries, and one succumbed to alcohol poisoning) when 323,000 imperial gallons (1,468,000L) of beer in the Meux and Company Brewery burst out of its vats and gushed into the streets. Now this is the way to go people! Can you imagine that conversation in heaven? “Hey buddy, how did you get here? “Well, Oktoberfest flashed before my eyes and then I was here.”
In 2011, a 25-year-old woman from Ottawa, Ontario and a 40-year-old man, of Gatineau, Quebec, died after an airborne American black bear smashed through the windshield of their SUV near Luskville, Quebec. The bear had been hit by another vehicle, launching it into the oncoming lane where it landed on the SUV. What a way to go people! “Death by Flying Bear.” It does not say if the bear survived but if so, he could have joined Cirque du Soleil. Can you imagine what the bear’s last thoughts were? No me either, I don’t speak bear.
I wrote this column because I have long suspected that I will die a very stupid death. I, of course, have no idea how or when, but I hope my last thoughts aren’t while choking, “Why did I eat that triple quarter pounder with cheese?” Or while out camping, “Oh, that’s not a big fuzzy tree, there really is a Bigfoot!!”
Any last thoughts? Meet me at the information booth in heaven.
