RIP, me

I'm going to be musing about my death, so if you'd rather not deal with that topic, this is the point at which to bail.

OK. Death. Comes to us all, etc. But the question at the moment is, when?

I could die before I go on the cruise or after I go on the cruise. My health is not bad, but I'm 67. I'm currently recovering from what I'm assuming is flu, though it could of course be bubonic plague or one of those.

But the really interesting possibility is: what if I die while I'm on the cruise? Think of the possibilities:

• “Portland Woman Felled by Curare-Tipped Dart on Tour of Amazon”
• “Falklands War Re-ignites, Oregonian Is First Victim”
• “Leaping Orca Snatches Portland Tourist from Cruise Ship”
• “Easter Island Head Topples, Crushing Nearby Oregon Tourist”
• “Portlander Dies in Botched Malacca Straits Pirate Kidnap Attempt” (And we've got a second shot at this one when we do the Suez Canal and go past Somalia.)
• “Angry Camel Stomps Oregon Tourist en Route to Pyramids”
• “Portland Tourist Succumbs to Delight While Dancing on Greek Beach with Zorba”
• “Oregonian Insults Mafia in Sicily, Sleeps with Fishes”

Given my druthers, if I die on the cruise, I would prefer it be a solitary event. No collisions with icebergs – that's been done – no successful pirate attacks that take over the whole ms Amsterdam, no rogue waves that slosh a dozen or twenty of us overboard.

I'm all set up at home for it. Spiffy new will in a plastic bag in the freezer compartment, agreement with my sister Jenny (who does that sort of thing professionally) to serve as my executor, mortgage paid off to simplify the estate. Last summer my daughter Lizz cleaned up my condo, so no one will have to face the decade-long accumulation of crud that was there before. Nanette, who will live forever because the universe needs her spiritual strength, will give Ochi a new home.

And thousands of dollars will be spent repatriating my remains, if any (see orca and Mafia scenarios above), and the kids should have me immediately cremated and eventually scattered at Little Big Horn battlefield. (Kids, Omega Funeral Home over on SE 122^nd can handle the cremation for you. They'll do a good job and they won't rip you off.) Lizz will have my name and birth and death dates chiseled onto my father's tombstone, which she's already researched. And the world will go on without me, as it inevitably will in any case.