Love & Death

~I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens~ Woody Allen

I'm morbidly fascinated by death. It happens to all of us, but most of us, don't love talking about it. I fear more the manner in which I'll die rather than the actual act of my body being cremated and later, spread near my favorite restaurant, Lake Superior, and Venice, Italy. Like most people, I don't want to experience any pain when I die. Death by drowning, fire, lightening, or being pushed off a building just doesn't seem appealing to me.

I'm a planner, so I found an "Odds of Dying" chart, which lists the odds of death due to several different types of injuries, to post on my refrigerator; courtesy of The National Safety Council website with the slogan "Making our World Safer." I'm sure you've asked yourself once or twice, "Will I be bitten or crushed by a reptile somewhere in the US this year?"  According to "Odds of Dying," there's approximately a 1 in 298,360,000 chance of this happening, so it'd be like winning a death lottery, you could be that one person bitten or crushed by a turtle, snake, lizard, or croc. Good luck! Being crammed on public transportation especially without seat belts is a concern to me, so I always think twice about traveling by trolley, and good thing as the odds of dying while riding in one are about 1 in 149,180,000. If you keep your house excessively hot or cold, my friends, your chances of dying are 1 in 49,730,000. You've been warned. 

Now, the eternally corny question "What are the odds of finding true love?" Well, from my experience, astronomical and the numbers back me up. After Googling "how many males are there in the world," I found there are approximately 3.4 billion. I'm certain that pure luck has spared me from death by way of the above-mentioned, but my unbelieveable luck ran out when it came to matters of love, marriage and sanity. A therapist, once referencing a National Institute of Health study which suggested that brains were not fully formed until age 25, said my ill judgement of agreeing to marry could've been caused by brain immaturity. So, not only did I have a deformed brain, but the odds of correctly choosing a compatible life partner were darn near impossible.

If I were a gambling man betting on finding love or dying first, my money would always be on death by reptile, trolley, or my apartment being too hot because I hate air conditioning. Suffering from love and death is a painful part of life, but even though the odds are grave, I likely wouldn't want to be alive if the possibility of love didn't exist. As the mature-brained people say, love is not for the faint of heart.