This is mostly because I have been told it makes you feel quite rotten and is apparently very difficult to recover from! Worse still, death invariably these days gets you 'cremated' due in no small part to plots of ground in which to be laid to rest costing nearly as much as a Chelsea townhouse!
Cremation of course essentially means you're chucked in a wooden box and thrown unceremoniously on the barbecue while friends and family, desperate to get down the pub, sing 'abide with me' somewhat half-heartedly and wonder if they can get away without putting anything in the collection tin!
Now I freely admit that this is a very cynical view of how life's passing will be marked but this is not the real source of my angst. Being incinerated and having my ashes bunged in an urn to sit on the mantelpiece is bad, but my friends, what is far, far worse is the gradual decline that most of us will go through before we actually clash swords with the grim reaper.
Losing physical ability starts early, hitting forty brings a pile of life revelations, most of them sadly far from pleasant. For instance a mans hair will suddenly start withdrawing from his scalp and pop out through his nose and ears, at the same time putting on an impressive growth spurt, the like of which is only normally seen in a juvenile Giraffes neck muscles!
By the time you hit fifty something, getting out of bed will be something akin to enduring some medieval torture. Joints become unworthy of the name, acquiring it seems, a sort of biological rust, causing a complete seizing up of the various sockets and hinges, impenetrable by the entire stock of Glucosimine supplements held by the drug store.
Muscles knot tighter than Popeye's biceps but provide only pain and no strength. So each day starts with a sort of unfolding manoeuvre in an attempt to rise up out of bed. Newton's laws are fully employed as legs are thrust out into the void to act as a sort of pendulum in an attempt to 'rock' upright. Three attempts usually suffices and you will manage to sit on the edge of the bed with head bowed and wait for the pain to abate and blood to seep down into the feet in enough quantity to give some feeling other than pins and needles.
After a short while we feel emboldened enough to stagger to the shower, though even this 'exercise' does little to straighten our crumpled gait.The hot water though provides sufficient easing of the symptoms that we can wash,dress and gingerly go downstairs for breakfast before placing ourselves into the car seat to make it into work in time to moan, along with the rest of our colleagues about our worsening physical function while consuming several gallons of tea.
That's when someone enters the room claiming to feel like 'Death warmed up'
WHAT?! I muse, you escaped from the barbecue?....Ah well it's probably just as well, I've got no change and don't know the words to Abide with me. Pass the Omega-3 will you?
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