Not Being Dead

I was thinking today about how great it is not to be dead.

I mean, a few years ago I was dead and now I'm not. I. In a few years I will probably be dead again, but at the moment I'm not at all dead - which is quite a bonus (most of the time).

I was trying to think about which particular aspects of life make it so great not being dead.

One thing that definitely makes it worth not being dead is food. I'm guessing that when you're dead, then you don't eat anything. I mean, even if you're floating around as a ghost or something, you’re not going to eat anything.

Some people think that when you're a ghost you maybe feed off power lines and other electrical power sources, but even so, that hardly compares to a ice cream or a hamburger does it? Even though 240 volts of power may assure you a continuing existence in the afterlife, I doubt it tastes particularly great - it's probably akin to existing purely on boiled rice: boring, but keeps you going. Ghosts are definitely missing a trick by not evolving into some form of entity that can exist solely on ice-cream - I don’t think even an eternity on ice-cream would be too long.

I think another thing I’d really miss is bodily functions.

It might be great to float around in the ether or Heaven, or whatever may or may not await us, but I personally would really miss everyday bodily functions such as picking my nose. You’ve got to admit, there’s something very satisfying about getting a finger jammed up your nose and having a good dig about whilst no-one is looking. Nose-picking is one of those nasty habits we all acquire that no-one will admit to. It’s in the same league as masterbation and taking a leak in the shower. I suspect that in the afterlife there are no limbs, digits or noses, making nose picking totally unfeasible (which is a real pity). I’m sure there are other benefits to being a dead entity (such as floating around invisibly watching women in the shower), but the loss of digging out nasal debris will be a sad loss.

I guess one of the best things about not being dead is having a pet. I doubt they really allow pets in the afterlife. I’m a big fan of having a pet - I’m a particular fan of cats, but am also fond of dogs, horses, birds and even the odd furry creature that may normally be regarded as vermin.

I think it would a pretty miserable existence not being allowed pets. In fact, I think one major own-goal that blights some mainstream religions is the notion that pets do not possess a soul. It’s pretty sad to think that in the hereafter you won’t get to meet up with Tiddles, Bonzo or Rex (but it might be a good thing if it was a dog who used to sh** around the house a lot).

As a passionate pet owner of many years, it’s hard to believe that if we have a ‘soul’ that our treasured pets are not afforded the same privilege. Pets provide more love and companionship than many people I know. In fact if it came down to it, I think I'd rather opt for the eternity of darkness & nothingness rather than being stuck in some alternative eternal destination with some of the miserable dweebs I’ve met in life, if I’m not allowed to meet up with my dearly departed pets.

And, finally, I guess the one thing that almost goes without saying on my list of things that are great about not being dead is: beer. In fact, it’s hard to believe that there won’t be any beer in our final, eternal destination. It would be great to sit in a heavenly pub with a few angels eating salty snacks and drunkenly nudging each other when an attractive spirit walks by. But, as I doubt that eating and drinking are part of post-life activities, I doubt this scenario will arise. So, I’ll have to make-do with enjoying the heavenly liquid whilst confined to this earthly plane. I look forward to the coming warm summer months when I can return from a run and grab an ice-cold beer out of the fridge and cool down in the sunshine with a glistening, dripping bottle of chilled amber goodness.

I suppose there are other things that I’ll miss, such as the beauty of nature, the chuckles of a young child and the smell of new born babies, but all of that sh** is for people who are a little more ‘cerebral’ than me. I’ll miss the more ‘earthy’ aspects of our earthbound existence.

The Yellow Mug

I do not have OCD. I want to make that clear, right out of the ‘gate’.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong or untoward about repeating a process or action because it just ‘works’. And, there is nothing wrong with rigorously defending that tried and trusted action in order to maintain the comfort and efficiency that it brings.

I mean, if something works well and avoids annoying mistakes with no additional effort or thought, what on earth is wrong with trying to defend and maintain it !?

You’re probably already close to clicking away to another web page, going to grab a coffee or maybe deciding if the call of nature is more urgent than getting to the end of this nugget of trivial self-indulgence, so I’ll explain myself..

Every day I enjoy having a cup of tea when I get up in the morning (...and no, that isn’t a euphemism for something else). I am fulfilling the stereotypical image you probably have about English people: I love to have a cup of tea first thing in the morning (there you are, you always suspected as much!)

When making a cup of tea, I enjoy the usual rituals of boiling the water, warming the tea pot and, of course, adding milk to the tea cups. (As a side-note, the milk is always added to the cups before pouring the tea - adding the milk after pouring the tea is, to be frank, just plain wrong).

However, when I’m making a cup of tea for myself and my wife, there is a slight difference in the way we like to take our tea. My wife enjoys tea without sugar, whereas I enjoy tea with a half teaspoon of sugar added. (Again, another side-note: when I’m trying to lose weight, I will often go for a few weeks without sugar in my tea in the misguided belief that it may in fact help me to lose weight. But, I don’t enjoy the tea as much - it’s a bit like having a plain digestive biscuit as opposed to a chocolate one) .

Whilst making the tea, I came up with a cunning system a few years ago to differentiate between which teacup has sugar added and which has none. As we have a tree mug with both yellow and green mugs in our kitchen, I decided I would use a colour coded approach to this ‘issue’. I chose a yellow mug for tea with sugar, and a green mug for the tea without sugar. Then, when I had taken the tea upstairs to have tea-in-bed, there would be no agonising over which tea has the sugar in, it would always be the yellow mug. (OK, I know you could do a quick tastes test, but who wants to take the risk of transmitted infections etc. at that time in the morning?).

So, that became my ‘system’: a yellow mug has sugar, a green mug has no sugar. Simple, effective and requiring no additional brain processing power at unearthly hours of the morning. Perfect.

At first, the system worked really well. It was my ‘secret system’ that no-one ever questioned, as they were totally oblivious to it. Everyone got the right cup of tea, everyone was happy.

However, some time later, my wife gave me a cup of tea in a green mug, which to be honest just felt ‘wrong’ after so many months of using a yellow mug for myself. I took the time to carefully explain my yellow/green mug, sugar/no-sugar system to my wife, confident that she would see its beauty and value, and become a disciple of this fail-safe system sugar indication system.

Unfortunately, my wife hotly dismissed my behaviour as the beginning of a compulsion. She commenced a campaign of psychological warfare against me by reversing the sugar content of yellow and green mugs at every opportunity. She set out to try to break this perceived ‘obsession’ by purposefully putting sugar in green mugs of tea and explicitly telling me what she’d done. I initially tried to resist rising to this rather mocking behaviour (trying not to let her know the psychological toll this was having on me), but found it more and more difficult to fight the rising tide of frustration at getting tea with sugar in green mugs.

After some lively ‘debates’ about my yellow/green mug system, things have died down somewhat. I try to ensure that whenever it’s an appropriate time to make a cup of tea, I am always first to the kettle to make sure I can enforce my yellow/green mug system. I think it works quite well - my wife doesn’t have to make tea very often (as I beat her to the kettle) and I get to maintain the status quo regarding mug colouration.

The good news is, I get to have the last laugh: I’ve extended my system to cups of coffee too, and my wife doesn’t even know! Who’s laughing now eh?!

(file this one under: OCD & boredom during a lunch hour...)