by Klaus von Hohenloe

Created on: April 15, 2008

You have all thought about it at one time in your life. Maybe it first came across your mind at a funeral, or perhaps just randomly one night while you struggled to get to sleep. For most of us it was when our parents found that pack of cigarettes in our jeans. "I wonder what they'll put on my tombstone..."

Some of us may quickly dismiss such thoughts as macabre and unpleasant. The rest of us, however, know it to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Literally. We can't stop thinking about what unique, smart-ass remark we will be remembered by. I, being on the morbid side, have even placed my choices in different categories to help me keep track of them all.

Being a man of a million awful jokes, I've no shortage of snappy one-liners. "If you're reading this, I envy you" has always held a dear place in my heart, followed closely by "Last words: Hey, watch this!" In the end, I decided that wasn't the way to go. It seemed a little cliche, and I couldn't live with the idea of being cliche. Not that I would have to, mind you, but it's the principle.

The idea of a shock value inscription crossed my mind. No matter how impossible a person knows it to be, they can't resist turning around when they read "I'm standing behind you!" I only briefly considered "Help! I'm not dead!" before I realized I had returned to the "land of the used and abused." Perhaps referencing a specific person in my life? "Brad Smith did it! Avenge me!" However, I imagine there to be certain members of my family that might take that seriously, and I doubt whatever person I named to be to happy with the late me. No sense making enemies who would soon join me in the afterlife.

I finally believed I was on to something when I decided on a truly wonderful inscription that would require a good amount of work in the later years of my life. I would spend my last five year eccentric and aloof, spreading a rumor that I had amassed a small fortune. Then, when I finally died, people would wonder what happened to all my wealth. Then they would see my tombstone, and on it, two numbers. 46.2 and 122.19. The cleverest of my family and friends would realize these to be the geographical coordinates to Mt. Saint Helens, which is "obviously" where I must have hidden my fortune. A number of them would race each other to the spot searching for the clues I would have placed in the years prior. Finally they would discover the large chest I would cleverly have hidden, and inside would be a plaster mold of my hand holding up a particularly rude finger.

I quickly realized that I'm too lazy to try and do something like that now, so I doubt I would be up to the task when I'm an old, frail man. For quite some time after that I was disheartened. I was certain I would never come up with the perfect inscriptions. I was positive I was destined to have "Beloved [insert titles here]" forever etched in the stone above my head, and I didn't want to be remembered with a lie like that. Then it hit me. It was so simple and perfect I was almost eager to die. However, finding myself terribly occupied with living, I will wait patiently for the day to come when I forever sleep under the words I shall no doubt be chuckling at in Heaven.

"Laugh now. God tells me you're next."

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