Better Off Dead List

Have you ever given any serious thought to how you would kill someone?

The reason I ask is that I just woke from an afternoon nap thinking of four people facing each other with murder in their eyes. The first man blew a poison dart into the neck of the guy opposite him. I think it was his brother. The man with the dart in his neck threw a hatchet into the skull of the well dressed gentleman to his right. Just as the hatchet was spinning through the air, that well dressed man flipped a small knife underhanded towards the woman in a stunning evening gown which just nicked her carotid artery. A look of hatred came across her face as she pulled a small silver gun from a pearl encrusted clutch and shot the first man in the stomach.

 

Now, I want to state that I don’t normally wake to imagined scenarios involving murder and mayhem. Normally, I will regain consciousness as the fog slowly recedes from my mind. I am not against waking to violent death, just so long as it isn’t my violent death.

 

One thing that struck me is that three of the four deaths would be relatively slow and lingering deaths. There is nothing slow and lingering about a hatchet in the forehead. Well, I don’t think so anyways. My daughter’s boyfriend has joined an axe throwing club recently. I didn’t even know that axe throwers had a club or even got together at all. I remember when I was a kid that the opening credits of Disney’s Daniel Boone had him tossing a hatchet at a tree, but I assumed he was alone at the time. I have a tendency to talk before I think, but I am going to make sure to watch what I say around Ryan from now on.

 

I have never actually used a blow gun, but if I am ever offered the opportunity, I will jump at the chance. When I was a kid, we all had pea shooters and I did become pretty accurate shooting my friends and the occasional ants. The worse that could happen from a pea shooter is perhaps a damaged cornea best case scenario, but most likely just a tiny spit stain on a t-shirt. Blow guns would be cool, but I have no idea where I might find a sufficient amount of curare. It’s probably a controlled substance anyways.

 

I could see myself with a throwing knife, but there is no way I would be able to hit what I was aiming at without a lot of practice and who wants to practice? I just want to be able to do it. I could get a small gun I suppose, but I would look pretty suspicious carrying a pearl encrusted clutch purse.

I do have a better off dead list. I am getting older and my list is surprisingly getting smaller. It isn’t as if I am getting mellower in my old age, but rather that I am retired and don’t deal with many people on a day to day basis. The other factor is that more than a few people on the list are dying, mainly of natural causes. I would prefer they died violently, but dead is dead and who am I to question the manner of someone’s death?

I do have some control in my dreams, so I think that from now on I will review the Better Off Dead List just before my head hits the pillow.