In the end, be dead certain

I don’t ask much of people. I don’t think I’m demanding or high maintenance or overly obnoxious — at least not most of the time. I’m not particularly picky.

That being said, I would very much like to ask a favor. It’s a big one to me so don’t take it lightly. You might think it’s a little odd to ask and perhaps even morbid, but I can’t help it. It’s something I feel strongly about so I hope you’ll oblige.

When the day comes that my life here on earth seems to have come to an end, please make sure … really sure … dead sure … I’m dead.

I can’t be like the man in South Africa who died last weekend … or, rather, supposedly died last weekend. While his family was at home planning his funeral, he was waking up in the morgue freezer.

“It’s hugely disturbing,” a spokesman with the health department there said. You think? I have had two — two — nightmares this week about this very story.

Allow me to make something perfectly clear — I am not afraid of dying. When my time comes, my time comes, and I look forward with great joy to the day I get to see my loved ones that have gone before me. I just want to make sure I’m truly ready for my eternal trip and not just taking a nice, long nap. I trust the health officials here to deem my state appropriately, but I still give you permission to make sure — extra sure.

Pinch me. Poke me. Hit me in the head if you have to. I won’t be mad or come back to haunt you, I swear.

Apparently, when workers at the morgue in South Africa heard yells for help coming from the morgue freezer, they thought it was a ghost. I have no doubt that I would have thought the same thing. I have, on occasion, been spooked by what I will neither deny nor confirm was a ghost. There was the ghost who lived in my first apartment who would turn the water in my bathroom on at night. There was the ghost who changed the channels on the television and the one who kept hiding things from me. I kinda think that latter ghost still lives at my house, but he goes by the name Old Age.

Thankfully, the morgue workers overcame their fear and called the police, who came in and opened the freezer and saved the man. He’s okay, by the way. A little cold, but alive and well.

I shared my newfound fear of not really being dead with a friend who, of course, thought I was morbid but was equally appalled at the story of the South African man. I asked her if she would take on the job of “making sure” for me if I were to depart before she does. She half-heartedly agreed. I told her I would do the same for her.

I even have a plan.

She is deathly afraid of even the mere mention of frogs. I would simply place a frog on her head and if she didn’t jump up, scream her head off and knock me unconscious, I would know she was gone. Then again, if I did that and she was, indeed, still alive, it would probably give her a heart attack, which would defeat the purpose. I need to re-think that plan.

My husband hasn’t asked me, but I know what would get him up. All I need to do is tell him that Hillary Clinton has been elected president or that network television has announced that the only sports they will broadcast is women’s basketball, and he will wake up — probably even if he’s dead.

All that said, please just do me this one favor. Please make sure. Really sure.

And still, just in case, go ahead and leave me a sweater. I don’t like to be cold.