So, it occurred to me that I should form an official list. That way, I won’t have to think about it anymore. It’s not like I do think about it all the time but it occasionally drifts into my mind while behind the wheel or contemplating airplane travel. And I occasionally think of it while sleeping at night, walking around town, even shopping. And yeah, cooking and/or eating in restaurants. Why the morbid obsession? If you think about it you are lulled into believing you have some control over it, which you do not. To a degree. I do think not all deaths are equal. The fear factor is a big component in judging overall awfulness of one’s death. I’m leaving out improbable ways of being murdered, say, sliced all over your body with a razor blade until you bleed out. And I’m leaving off all methods of medieval torture, like the the notorious Pear or the Catherine Wheel. Unless you count episodes of CSI, those kinds of things are less likely to happen than, say, a nuclear bomb going off in Los Angeles. Speaking of which, I think we are living in an era when a bomb could go off, even a nuclear one. So here goes. The top twenty, to my mind, worst ways to die.

1. Terminal disease. Not only do your loved ones have to watch you die but you have way too much time sitting around contemplating your past, what might have been your future and, god forbid, your children’s future. It’s so awful a thought I can’t even go there.

2. Plane Crash. I definitely would be putting this as number one except for the fact that I’m now a mother and terminal illness would be by far a worse way to go. But a plane crash would only be made better if it were an instant fireball. I imagine the ones that happen right at takeoff or landing are terrifying. The ones while you’re in the air and there’s engine failure, the worst. In case you’re interested, here is a rundown of the 100 worst in history. Good news is that plane crashes are EXTREMELY rare. The odds against it happening are staggering. Still, it’s terrifying.

3. Being locked in a hot car until you can’t breathe and you overheat.

4. Drowning by being locked in a car or flooded in a confined space.

5. Murdered and tortured by a serial killer. You’d think this would be higher but at least you have the option of fighting back – and I know I’d rather die fighting than just die.

6. Suicide. Horrible in any way, shape or form. It has got to suck to be that sure.

7. Attacked by wild animals, including sharks and grizzly bears. Bears in particular seem to be terrifying but then again, I’ve heard that you basically go numb so it isn’t so bad. Anything that makes you lose consciousness immediately isn’t so bad by comparison.

8. Suffocating. Either by someone putting a pillow over your face or by having something heavy fall on you like your roof.

9. Fire. Dying in a fire would not be fun. Again, I don’t even think about my own death so much as how it would involve my kid. Once you become a parent your first thought is always – how would I save my kid?

9. Death by flying object, like a spinning ceiling fan, a steel object off of a truck or a really fast baseball. But these things might be so fast they wouldn’t be that awful.

10. Starving to death. I should think would be higher on the list. Maybe by the time you get to the death point it’s almost a relief though, where starvation is concerned. I think about the Holocaust. That would be, hands down, the worst way to die but since we are not confronted by camps like these I have to leave it at starvation.

11. Being tortured and beheaded by Islamic terrorists. I guess this should be higher but what the hell.

12. One of those flesh eating things where you die in like 24 hours.

13. Mad Cow Disease.

14. Punched and beaten to death.

15. Car crash. It’s low on the list because it’s almost so instant as to not matter that much.

16. Nuclear bomb. That one you could probably see coming so again, should be higher on the list.

17. Injected with painful liquids like bleach.

18. Being pushed off of a building.

19. Dying of thirst. A whole different animal from starving to death and has to be ten times worse.

20. Shot.

The best way to die? In your sleep, of old age, peacefully. Or in an instant.

Sorry for the morbid post but it was on my mind and I had to blog about it. 🙂