Drop Dead Me

"It was one of those surreal things, like seeing a UFO. When you are a person who already thought that maybe you should be dead because life was so bad to you, I thought this could be a premonition."- Laura Brooks, of Spotsylvania, Virginia, who discovered she had become one of about 14,000 people a year mistakenly declared dead when she stopped receiving her disability checks, and her rent and student loan payments unexpectedly bounced. (Source: Chicago Tribune)

I resonate with this story as, when I was a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington, I was declared dead and had to be walked through registration for the entire eight years that I was there. Dead student studying.

Bizarre things started to happen. For example, insurance men began to come to my home trying to sell me life insurance. "Why?" I would ask. "I'm already dead."

There is a bit of freedom in not being alive for a while. Good stories in your life as a ghost. When I went to the doctor I would ask, "Should I be seeing you or the medical examiner?"

The only thing that is not funny is, of course, the money. And the mounds of paperwork required to get your life back.

But once you are you again (if that is, in fact who you decide you want to be), life is grand. And least until the real Reaper comes.