Too clean to die now

The other night in the wee hours I found myself at my computer. I was typing a letter entitled "In the Event of my Death". Seriously. This whole matter of needing surgery, surgery being postponed because of an abnormal ekg, must be cleared by a cardiologist before having surgery, must have a stress test before being cleared by a cardiologist, possible heart attack and damage to the heart... finally knocked me down. Granted, it was the middle of the night and I was temporarily out of pain pills and not sleeping, otherwise I would have never allowed myself to be knocked down. But, really, at 2 a.m. who are you going to call to to ask they pull you out of the doldrums? I could call my best friend, Linda, but the fact that I keep my 2 a.m. ramblings to myself is probably one of the best reasons we're still friends after 20 years.

I began thinking about what kind of condition my loved ones would find in the office, the closet, my files if, in the event of my death, they were trying to find something...like the insurance papers, the electric bill, a new cartridge for the printer. I can promise you one thing: if they had to look through the piles and piles of stuff (junk), mail (junk), they would no longer consider themselves my loved ones....

So I decided I needed to clean all this stuff up BEFORE I went for my stress test. First the files. There was stuff from 20 years ago. What possible reason do i need to keep paid water bills from 20+ years and two states ago? If I missed a payment, they've probably forgiven me by now, and if not, who cares? They gonna drag me across county to chastise me for not making a $8 payment?

I had SSOOOOO many files, mail, and unknown stuff that it would have taken me six years to shred it all. So I did the next best thing. I built a bonfire in the fireplace. It took me three loads to get it all burned. And an hour to scoop out all the residual ashes.

Next I cleaned out the refrigerator. If I died during my stress test, I'm sure people would be bringing casseroles over and stuff would need my fridge. Now all that food can be put into a clean refrigerator and no one has be feel compelled to call in the health department!

The last thing I needed to do was lay out the plans for my funeral. Oh come on! That's not morbid! What would be morbid is the choice of music my husband would have made if left to his own devices. And they'd most likely have my coffin open and me laying there in all my dead awkwardness while people are filing past making comments about how wonderful/horrible I looked. No thanks. I left instructions that my coffin not even be in the service. Of course, if they did a particularly good job with the makeup and perhaps liposuction my hips and butt, I might consider letting them prop me up on a loveseat and give people a photo op. That would take care of the complaints I get for not ever wanting my picture taken while I was alive.

And no downer music. I'm not there! I'm already dancing in Heaven. The ending song has to be "Take the Shackles off my Feet" by MaryMary. Let everyone leave with their feet dancing!

So, by 3 a.m. I was ready to have a fatal heart attack during my stress test.

Except I didn't.

But with this clean office, refrigerator and files, it might just be rather pleasant living here a little longer, so this might be a good thing.