Conversations

     Much snark has been penned about “first world problems.” Indeed, we have it better here in the U.S. of A. than pretty much anyone else anywhere. Yet we, for all our material blessings, must individually face the same terminus as every man who’s ever lived or ever will.

     The Grim Reaper has recently taken valued friends from both myself and the C.S.O., which has put us in, shall we say, a strange frame of mind. We don’t agree on religious matters – I’m a Catholic; she’s a secularized Jew – but we agree that death is something “we’d rather not,” even if the afterlife that awaits us is utterly blissful. Yet it’s a notable fact, worthy of an extended ponder, that there are more jokes about death than about any other subject except sex. So this morning we had the following exchange:

FWP: I’m thinking about death from the perspective of “first world problems.”
CSO: Come up with anything yet?

FWP: Well, if you didn’t use up your frequent flier miles, forget ‘em, man. They’re gone.
CSO: Hmmm...

FWP: And you’ll never get to see the final season of Game of Thrones.
CSO: Whoa, yeah, there is that. And that bottle of champagne you were saving for a “special occasion?”

FWP: Your heirs will get it.
CSO: And they can’t tell Dom Perignon from carbonated Ripple.
FWP: It could be worse. They could open it and pass it around at the wake.

CSO: This death stuff is looking grimmer all the time.
FWP: Gotta tell ya, I’m in no hurry.

     Humor among the bereaved wouldn’t pass muster among persons not currently so afflicted, would it?