December 22, 2004

making arrangements

Fish: I think I have consumption and I'm going to die in a heap of rags -- all dramatic like.

G: Well I sincerely do not want you to shuffle off this mortal coil. But I know that if you did, it would totally be the best death ever.

Fish: I intend for there to be PLENTY of weeping and wailing. And maybe string instruments.

G: I will tear my clothes asunder in utter, inconsolable grief.

Fish: Awesome. I'll put you in the program. I need someone to gnash their teeth, too. Maybe Biscuit?

G: Good thinking. Do you want us to serve red, white, or blush?

Posted by This Fish at December 22, 2004 11:20 AM
Comments

And make sure you play Bach at the wake.

Posted by: Robotnik at December 22, 2004 11:31 AM

Holy shite, I just noticed: CONSUMPTION! Now THAT'S old school Fish.
However, you're in good company...Beethoven died of "consumption" as well as many others--some famous--but I don't feel like doing research. Let's just put you in ol' Ludwig Van's company and call it a day.

auf!

Posted by: Robotnik at December 22, 2004 11:49 AM

Someone asked me how I was going to die the other day. I said I don't know, but I bet there's a lot of cops around.

Consumption's not very sexy. It makes me think of Doc Holiday, lying in bed with his boots on, surround by his own mucus. How about this for an old timey disease?
MARASMUS: Progressive wasting away of body, like malnutrition

Posted by: NEIN at December 22, 2004 12:10 PM

Best old-timey death ever: the composer Lully. Died of a stubbed toe aquired while conducting a concert celebrating the successful rectal surgery of his patron.

http://www.dsokids.com/2001/dso.asp?PageID=406

Posted by: Coelecanth at December 22, 2004 12:19 PM

and the keening--don't forget the keening!

Posted by: shivery at December 22, 2004 01:36 PM

A nice violin solo would fit in there nicely.

Posted by: Rafael at December 22, 2004 01:53 PM

I intend to die in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming and burning like his passengers.

(rim shot)

I want a short, old-school Presbyterian funeral, with a bagpiper playing "Amazing Grace."

And then I want a wake befitting the level of joy, or at least entertainment, I've tried to bring to other people's dreary lives. I mean, kegs, a good blues band, firearms & explosions, startled livestock, multiple arrests, the whole nine yards. Keening mandatory. Rending of garments mandatory for those entering the hot tub.

Also, Doc Holliday HAD consumption, but I don't think he died of it. And whatever he died of, he lived to a ripe old age first.

Posted by: Lex at December 22, 2004 02:12 PM

Nah, iocane poisoning looks cooler:

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha" *bonk*

Posted by: Gopi at December 22, 2004 02:19 PM

INCONCEIVABLE!

Posted by: Rafael at December 22, 2004 03:56 PM

Please stop using that word! I do not think it means what you think it means.

Posted by: laura at December 22, 2004 03:58 PM

BLUSH??
eww....

Posted by: maggie at December 22, 2004 04:38 PM

Note to Fish: Two boring things to write about... 1) How often you are getting it. 2) Being overly dramatic about having the flu.

Posted by: Mar at December 22, 2004 05:18 PM

Note to Mar: Get some.

Posted by: Fish at December 22, 2004 05:47 PM

My boyfriend's brother has the whooping cough. Swear to g-d. I was talking to a friend of mine this morning on the F train - she mentioned that she had had scarlet fever as a young child. So consumption? Why not!
Feel better!

Posted by: Sally at December 22, 2004 05:55 PM

Am I too late for the Princess Bride quotes?

Stop those rhymes now, I mean it!
Anybody got a peanut?

Posted by: The other Fish at December 22, 2004 07:00 PM

Not funny.

Posted by: shutupwiththedamnprincessbridequotes at December 22, 2004 08:44 PM

You are just some crazy cats. Love and a runny nose. If it meant contracting consumption to find love (didn't someone write a novel with that theme) then I say let the lung hacking begin!

Crap. I just coughed. I was totally being sarcastic. Seriously. At least let me get "some" first cruel fates.

Posted by: Joe J. at December 22, 2004 09:09 PM

Whooping Cough (Pertussis) is horrible! Give me a loaded .44, a bottle of gin, and my life's possesions which will all be put on "red" for a one-time spin of the roulette wheel a la that English freak who actually did this and won.

I don't want any kind of fuss over my death. I'm with Hemingway: "he died like every other man; and then he was dead."

Posted by: Robotnik at December 23, 2004 08:07 AM

I don't know what consumption is, but I *have* heard the Monty Python song "Decomposing Composers." Classic.

Posted by: Ontario Emperor at December 23, 2004 04:18 PM

My dear friend and cousin, 34, died on December 15, 2004 after a 2.5 year battle with breast cancer that spread before it was caught. She got married 2 months after her diagnosis. Nothing the least bit funny about losing someone so special and loved (she had the gift of true insight combined with tact that she shared with her friends, family and patients (she was a psychologist and most of her patients were young women/teenage girls). The way she died was incredibly cruel as well - she was the picture of health and wasted away in incredible pain.

Posted by: Lori at December 24, 2004 09:12 AM