Just Shoot Me

I often tell my friends to shoot me.

There's usually a qualifier beforehand, though.

"If I end up in coma, just shoot me."

"If I'm brain-dead, just shoot me."

"If I have a severe brain injury and I'm not the same old Ted, just shoot me."

My friends are all surprisingly eager to go along with it, too.  Worse, I think there's going to be a race to see who can get to me first.

Right now I work a job that is positively soul-crushing.  All day long I talk to people who are angry, bitter, old, dying, or the family members of somebody who is terminal or has already died.  I talk to people who cannot get their medications because of red tape, idiot doctors, and high costs. Sometimes, I can help them, sometimes I can't do shit.

It sucks.

And most of these calls involve them telling me about all their medical problems and how horrible it is to have those ailments.

So my list has grown.  On a daily basis, I'm telling friends, "Hey, man...if I ever have ________, please shoot me."

Right now the list is rather long and I'm afraid they'll end up shooting me for a hangnail soon.

One of these days I'll tell them I stubbed my toe on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night and it really hurts.

"I'll be right over!"

One thing is very clear--I have no reason to grow old.  None.  And I cannot see a single benefit to being old.  I don't have a reason to wake up tomorrow.  I can't imagine being at the point where it hurts to pee and I'm having heart attacks and strokes.

I grew up with a grandfather in a wheelchair.  Half of his body was paralyzed.  I thought everybody in a wheelchair was grandpa when I was little.  My memories of my grandpa are of an old man in a wheelchair, mumbling because he couldn't talk well due to the paralysis, unless he cussed.  And all he would say was, "goddamned son of a bitch!"  At family gatherings, he would often be on the sidelines while the large family did their things.  He could cry because he was in so much pain.  I didn't realize the stoke messed up his emotions as well.  And I wanted to help, I really did, but there was nothing I could do and when I told my mom about it, she just downplayed everything.  The adults understood but I didn't.

There is no reason in the world to keep me around in that state.  None.

If I had money, I'd make a game of it.  I'd give a lawyer some cash and the condition was, whomever put me out of my misery would get that cash, and a letter from myself to the jury about how this was my idea.

But I'm broke as fuck so I have nothing to offer but my thanks and maybe my cookbooks or 21 year-old car.

I should post a list on here so everybody knows when to shoot me and when to let me deal with it.  I'd hate to get shot because I've got the shits but not shot because I have to wear a diaper.

Tonight I ate pizza with a homemade pesto sauce, cheese and mushrooms.  I'm not watching anything I eat and my ass has been planted in front of my computer all day.  I'm taunting The Powers That Be and I don't care.  But I'm sure they won't let me out of here that easily.

And with my luck, the dipshit with a .22 pistol and bad aim will be the first one to find me, and I'll end up with a few scars and a constant headache.  So bring something big and shoot to win, because if I limp away from this, you'll end up the back of the van on a one-way trip to a deserted barn in the middle of nowhere.

Good luck.