HAGEN: Dying for a laugh

This Tuesday, James Heselden, owner of the company that makes the Segway scooter, fell to his death by driving over a cliff in a blaze of glory, “Thelma and Louise” style. Appropriately enough it was not a convertible that he accidentally drove over the edge, but rather a Segway scooter. Clearly this either is the greatest act of product loyalty or the worst ad campaign ever seen.

This is an unusually uncomfortable topic to discuss because death, no matter the circumstance, is typically painful and sad. And yet the irony is impossible to ignore. Every time I related the above news to a friend, the initial reaction was always a quick smirk. The irony of the situation always set in before the realization that a man lost his life did. What makes us literally want to laugh in the face of death?

Since early times, death has been a subject which is often approached with a dark humor. I am sure the citizens of Sicily had a chuckle when in 456 B.C. Aeschylus, who is regarded by many as the inventor of the Greek tragedy, died after an eagle mistook his bald head for a rock and dropped its turtle prey on him. Apparently the bird preferred farces to tragedies. In 1984, exercise maven Jim Fixx, who made a career from espousing the health benefits of running, died from a heart attack right after &- and I am sure you can guess the rest here &- a morning jog. At least for Aeschylus the comedy had not even been invented yet and so unlike Fixx he did not have to suffer from the posthumous humor that late night comedy hosts took advantage of.

More recently, in 2002, along with the English language, President George W. Bush almost fatally choked on a pretzel. While the death of a sitting president would undoubtedly be a national tragedy, I am sure lurking in the back of everyone’s minds would have been the thought: “The leader of the free world was brought down by an Utz’s twist? Really?”

Americans are so fascinated by strange and often strangely hilarious deaths that each year the prestigious Darwin Awards are bestowed upon those who have met their demise in such bizarre and stupid ways that it is a biological benefit to the human race that these people can no longer contribute to the gene pool. In 2009, for example, an Alabaman man, apparently bored by the lack of peril in baseball, decided to up the sport’s danger factor by playing a game of catch with a rattlesnake. If killing yourself was the object of this new sport he surely scored a grand slam when he died of, unsurprisingly, snakebites.

If you live your life in constant fear and obsession with your eventual demise than what’s the point of even living? The fact is that we are surrounded by death everyday and it is so common that if we constantly stress about it and don’t lighten the mood, everyone would probably (ironically) kill themselves. In order to enjoy life to the fullest you must come to terms with the inevitable fact that it will one day end. Death is, without a doubt the most terrifying uncertainty we must face, so why not face it with a little humor? When you are knocking on heaven’s door are you going to do so trembling or are you going to light a bag of dog poop on fire, set it on the front step, ring the doorbell and hide? I can’t wait to see St. Peter’s face when he stamps that thing out!

Naturally, writing about this has led me to consider my own mortality, or more specifically, what my ironic death would be. I would like to think that it will involve me being crushed by my collection of Nobel Prizes. But knowing my luck, my ending will probably be more similar to that of the German zookeeper and Darwin award winner who discovered the dangerous consequences of overzealously feeding your constipated elephant massive quantities of laxatives. Although suffocation by secretion is by far not my No. 1 way to go &- death by chocolate actually is &- at least it would be an interesting way to “go.” If the thought of that doesn’t make you smile then you are definitely not invited to my funeral.