{"id":543,"date":"1995-02-03T11:07:45","date_gmt":"1995-02-03T19:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/?p=543"},"modified":"2020-07-08T11:09:38","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T18:09:38","slug":"playing-yahtzee-with-the-reaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/1995\/02\/03\/playing-yahtzee-with-the-reaper\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing Yahtzee With the Reaper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jeffrey Carl<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"Jeffrey
University of Richmond Collegian, February 3 1995<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to a bare modicum of writing skill and a more obvious fondness for bourbon which aligned with that of my journalism professors, my putative career advanced rapidly through my undergraduate years. I went from a practicum story writer for the University of Richmond Collegian student newspaper in my freshman year to Assistant News Editor in my sophomore year, then on to Greek Life Editor and IT Manager (I read MacWorld magazine!) in my junior year, and ultimately to Opinion Editor in my senior year. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some reason that escapes me now, I acquired a humor column during this process at the beginning of my junior year. This column, titled “Over the Cliff Notes,” eventually ran for 22 installments and was over the course of two years was read by literally dozens of actual humans, only most of which where KA pledges I forced to do so. Its literary influence was quite literally incalculable, and I’m just going to leave it at that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It occurs to me now that topical humor from college campuses nearly 30 years ago does not age well. I’m sure it was absolutely hilarious at the time, though. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: This one really isn\u2019t funny, so you can probably skip it and go on to \u201cFreedom Betrayed\u201d (page 9).  Mr. Carl has assured us that this thing called \u201chaving a point\u201d is only a temporary phase and will not happen again.  Please excuse our momentary flirtation with responsible journalism.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just quit smoking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This should probably not surprise you or me, since this is the 136th time I\u2019ve quit smoking since I started.  Each of these attempts began in earnest but unfortunately only lasted until:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a) The Arch-Demon \u201cNicotine,\u201d like the Arch-Demon \u201cSkip Class and Drink Bourbon All Day\u201d called too loudly for my weak soul to refuse<\/p>\n\n\n\n

b) I was no longer visiting my parents or grandparents and could finally drop the pretense of not being a total degenerate, or<\/p>\n\n\n\n

c) I got really, really bored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ergo<\/em>, the fact that I have quit is unremarkable in itself, as my attempts to quit smoking were like the tides: regular, short-lived and, like the rest of my life, controlled entirely<\/em> by extraterrestrial forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why did I quit for good?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t the medical evidence.  I did not quit because smoking was sure to give me cancer, later in life; my parents would spare me the illness by killing me as soon as they found out I smoked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was not swayed by all those gross biological pictures the Surgeon General shows in anti-smoking campaigns (\u201cSmoker\u2019s lungs: Congested. Black. Different.\u201d<\/em>) or all of the warnings on the back of cigarette cartons (\u201cThe Surgeon General has determined that if you\u2019re going to smoke these, you can kiss your ass goodbye right now\u201d<\/em>).  Nor was it the polls which indicate that smoking tobacco is tied with \u201cclubbing baby seals\u201d in terms of popularity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor was it because of a humanitarian concern for the evils of \u201csecond-hand smoke.\u201d  Second-hand smoke, it has now been revealed, causes Scurvy and The Clap in concentrations of one part per million at 500 paces away, and is apparently the moral equivalent of baking brownies with chocolate Ex-Lax for your friends.  I understand how bad all this is, but I was never worried about it because all my apartment-mates deserve to die, anyway.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t even because an ex-girlfriend had told me that it made me taste and smell like gym socks.  I didn\u2019t quit because I noticed it was starting to make my teeth look moldy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did not quit because I had stumbled onto some magic cure for smoking (\u201cNew Nick Fitz <\/em>nicotine patches!  Now with the new miracle ingredient, Fraudulin!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did not quit because I had given up my tireless fight to clear the name of the good folks at Phillip Morris, Inc (\u201cThe mega-corporation with a heart … disease\u201d).  I did not quit because I finished my life-long dream of assembling a 1\/12 scale model of the Eiffel Tower out of Marlboro packs, including a working elevator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I quit because my friend died.  He didn\u2019t die of cancer from smoking six packs of Luckies a day, he didn\u2019t die after drinking three gallons of Rumple-Minze and driving off a cliff and he didn\u2019t die from gunshot wounds, unprotected sex or any of the other deaths that make such great cautionary tales.  He was just sick for a long time from some stupid disease nobody has ever heard of and then he became finally terminally deceased to death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he didn\u2019t do anything wrong<\/em>.  He didn\u2019t go looking for trouble, snorting Pine-Sol or playing in traffic.  He was a strait-laced sort of guy who didn\u2019t exactly cruise seedy bars downtown searching for The Grim Reaper (\u201cMa\u2019am, the cloaked skeleton at the table there playing chess would like to buy you a drink\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now he is just dead<\/em>.  Death is actually a terribly unromantic thing.  It\u2019s just … not<\/em>.  Not anything.  Eternal nothingness  (see \u201cIndiana,\u201d<\/em> two weeks ago) is probably pretty boring. And while life after death may exist (my friend believed there was), studies show that unfortunately, Heaven does not get cable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hell, however, does.  \u201cISHTAR-VISION!  The only channel that brings you all <\/em>Ishtar, all<\/em> the time!\u201d  And also VH-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why does my buddy shuffling off this mortal coil suddenly make me give up cancer sticks, after the combined armies of my ex-girlfriend and the Surgeon General failed to do so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably because I believe in endings now.  You see, at my ripe old age of 21, I had a difficult time believing that I or anyone else my age will not continue to exist forever.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had a difficult time conceptualizing all those things that I\u2019m pretty sure will happen to me eventually: getting married, having kids, buying a station wagon, having a mid-life crisis and trying to trade the kids in for a new Suzuki, getting hair in my ears, pretending I\u2019m senile so I can tell everybody to go to Hell and they won\u2019t blame me and finally telling everyone while I\u2019m on my deathbed that I buried all this gold right over in … aaaarggggh and dying before the last word so they go crazy looking for it, etc.  I sorta expected it to happen, but I never really believed any of it would.  Especially the \u201cdead\u201d part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had never expected to smoke for very long.  Usually just until next week.  \u201cNext week\u201d took about a year.  Time didn\u2019t really pass very fast \u2013 certainly not during Orientation Events or night classes \u2013 and it didn\u2019t mean much, anyway.  I\u2019d be young forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But time really does pass. Do what you wanted to do now<\/em>, or the next thing you know, you\u2019ve graduated and there\u2019s the Wagon Queen Family Truckster in the driveway and then you\u2019re sick of some disease nobody\u2019s ever heard of and then you\u2019re fatally deceased to death.  And it\u2019s over. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which, at worst<\/em>, means the absolute cessation of existence and the condemnation to the Infinite Void \u2013 and at best<\/em> means being forced to watch reruns of \u201cThe Civil War\u201d on the PBS affiliate in Heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I quit.  Aside from the obvious side effects (I\u2019m cranky as Hell, but at least I have an excuse now), it\u2019s not too bad.  Unfortunately, I had to find a substitue for nicotine, which means I now drink six cases of Mountain Dew per day.  This is fine, except I\u2019m now so wired that I haven\u2019t slept since before Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I quit smoking.  I think my friend would appreciate the thought.  And I hope PBS is having a fund drive, so they show cool \u201cFawlty Towers\u201d reruns too.  I\u2019m sure he\u2019s watching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeffrey Carl Thanks to a bare modicum of writing skill and a more obvious fondness for bourbon which aligned with that of my journalism professors, my putative career advanced rapidly through my undergraduate years. I went from a practicum story writer for the University of Richmond Collegian student newspaper in my freshman year to … Continue reading Playing Yahtzee With the Reaper<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ur-collegian","tag-collegian"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/URC_logo_header.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}