Three Hundred and Ten Advantages of Being Dead

Loosely Associated Files

Ruminations on Halloween (link)
List of Advantages of Being Dead (This page)
Background Essay on Día de Muertos (link)
Ethnographic Photos: Día de Muertos in Oaxaca (link) (several pages)
Ethnographic Description: San Andrés Mixquic 1997 (link)

There are certain advantages to being dead:

People tell each other not to speak ill of you.
There is no need to wash the dishes.
Doctors don’t tell you to eat less and exercise more.
Banks don’t ask you to sign up for yet more credit cards.
No one tries to take your place in line.
There are no midterms, pop quizzes, finals, or placement exams.
Cell phone companies don’t try to get you to sign long-term contracts with hidden charges.
Cats don’t expect you to feed them.
You have no responsibility to change the air filter, the diapers, the tires, or the litter box.
It doesn’t matter if you forgot to buy eggs.
Calories don’t make you fat.
Nobody schedules meetings, classes, or medical appointments before breakfast.
You can be as politically incorrect as you please.
There is no need to hold it in if you feel a need to cough, sneeze, burp, or fart.
Nobody sends you unsigned valentines.
You can quit saying hail-marys and still count as Catholic.
Nobody expects you to write letters, reports, memos, checks, or termpapers. Nobody tells you to present oral reports, or deliver PowerPoint presentations.
Nothing itches.
Department stores don’t direct “back to school” ads at you in June or Christmas ads in September.
People don’t boast to you about how vegan they are.
You can stop making payments on your student loans.
You no longer bash your head on hanging flowerpots, open cabinet doors, low lintels, tree branches, or chandeliers.
Teenage Nigerian con artists don’t send Email asking for your bank information because they are sexy prostitutes wanting to have affairs, or because you have won a lottery, or because they are rich widows of deposed dictators seeking to split the loot you will launder for them.
You don’t have to watch training videos.
Nobody asks to see your ticket, press pass, membership card, security clearance, hand-stamp, hall pass, passport, or photo ID.
Track coaches don’t tell you to get the lead out of your ass.
Your father doesn’t order you to major in engineering.
You don’t worry about being cool.
Nobody says to you, “Stop! How many times do I have to tell you?”
You are excused from jury duty.
You don’t mind waiting for tradesmen.
Other drivers don’t cut you off, slow down in front of you, pass you on the wrong side, or try prevent you from changing lanes.
You don’t care about being raped, mugged, lynched, or fed to crocodiles.
You don’t need to look up your symptoms on-line.
You don’t have to fly Frontier Airlines.
You don’t care about credit card fees, loyalty points, or identity theft.
It makes no difference if your phone, tablet, or laptop won’t hold a charge.
People don’t keep the cookies on a high shelf to keep you from reaching them.
It doesn’t matter whether there is a grease spot on your shirt.
You don’t give a damn what the stock market is doing.
You don’t have to hear rap music, listen to neighbors’ political opinions, or read freshman compositions.
You don’t care what’s rattling behind the dashboard.
Even the alumni society eventually gives up asking for contributions.
Nobody tells you to change your log-in and password.
You don’t lose chess games to your computer.
You don’t get pimples any more.
You don’t give a damn about congested traffic.
You don’t have to spend time looking for a parking space.
People stop trying to sell you life insurance.
It doesn’t matter where you put the car keys.
You don’t have to give up your bus seat to old people.
Nobody cares about your fly being zipped, your knowing Latin, or your being on time.
There is no risk of falling off the roof, stumbling as you cross the stage, or sneezing into the salad bar.
No one tries to teach you trigonometry or the fox trot or never to pick your nose in public.
They don’t do proctoscopies on you any more.
The U.S. government doesn’t threaten to waterboard you.
Domestic animals don’t climb in bed with you.
You don’t have to see your social worker, hearing board, or parole officer ever again.
Nobody expects you to memorize stuff.
Professors don’t keep urging you to attend their office hours.
You don’t have to wait in your office hours and have no students show up.
No coach, spouse, physician, phone app, or smart watch tells you to get more exercise.
There is no homework.
Elderly women don’t keep dumping their food onto your plate to show that they don’t eat much.
Mosquitoes have no interest in you.
You don’t risk running out of toilet paper.
You are untroubled by neo-Nazis, post-modernists, flat-earthers, astrologers, Trumpists, and other ideological flotsam.
You do not have to deal with phone trees or robots that say your call is important to them.
Nobody cares if you can’t tell an Emmenthal from a Gruyère or a merlot from a malbec.
Old people don’t tell you about their aches and pains.
You don’t need a new prescription for your glasses.
The cat doesn’t expect you to let it in/out.
Nobody tells you not to suck your thumb, pick your nose, or chew with your mouth open.
You needn’t know about the binomial theorem or why Heliogabalus lost his head.
You have no risk of becoming pregnant.
“Peaceful” protesters don’t try to kill you.
Even if you’re a dog, people don’t expect you to chase balls and sticks.
You are not the target of car commercials, political campaign ads, or public broadcasting membership drives.
No one expects you to practice the piano.
Neighbors don’t complain about your noisy parties.
You don’t care which side of the plate the fork goes on.
Geeky idiots don’t spam your telephone or Email account.
You don’t have to go to band practice, Hebrew School, weekend Mandarin classes, or YMCA camp.
Nobody says you have to finish your vegetables before you can have dessert.
Your spouse doesn’t mutter darkly every time you want to buy something.
Ironing your clothes is unnecessary.
It doesn’t make any difference that you haven’t read War and Peace, Moby Dick, Ulysses, or the Encyclopedia Britannica.
You are free to forget holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and famous dates in history.
Dogs, cats, bargirls, and grandchildren don’t try to climb in your lap.
You don’t have to pack suitcases, fold shirts, or sort socks.
Nobody asks you what you want to be when you grow up.
You can ignore the rules devised by the neighborhood association, residents’ committee, housing office, or board of governors.
It doesn’t matter if the bus comes late.
You don’t have to participate in an experiment as a condition of passing your psych class.
Nobody throws baby food at you.
Door-to-door missionaries leave you alone. So do Amway ladies, brush salesmen, and kids selling magazines trying to pretend they are not selling magazines.
Your mother doesn’t push you to pick a college major based on how much money she thinks it will make.
It is easy to ignore medical quacks, racetrack tipsters, and all politicians.
Street preachers don’t bother to tell you that you are going to hell.
It’s somebody else’s problem if the roof leaks, or the sewer backs up, or the dog rolls in dung.
There is no need to reboot your computer.
You cease to be offended by foul smells.
You don’t have to get bubble gum out of anybody’s hair.
You don’t care about disaster preparation.
People don’t try to feed you cilantro or horseradish or to read you “poetry” that doesn’t rhyme.
Nobody envies you because of the space you’re in.
You don’t give a damn about a snarky critic giving you a bad review.
You will never again have to walk through the Frankfort airport or have an overnight layover in Detroit.
You can quit worrying about what to do with old issues of National Geographic.
It is unnecessary to get up early to get to work on time.
Labor unions don’t try to organize you.
You don’t have to answer your critics.
People don’t expect you to lend them money.
People don’t tell you to quit smoking.
You cease to care if people give your kids that make lots of noise or have lots of pieces.
Terrorists don’t imagine that blowing you up will get them into paradise.
You don’t need to Google anything, fax anything, scan anything, photoshop anything, or muck with PDFs.
There are no early morning fire drills.
Losing your contact lenses is not a problem.
People don’t tell you to slow down.
The teacher doesn’t send you to the principal’s office.
There is no need to worry about the weather.
Agitated demonstrators don’t hold rallies against you.
Teenagers don’t complain that you don’t understand them.
Matchmakers don’t try to force you into marriage (at least in most countries).
Nobody expects you to to do a waltz, polka, foxtrot, square dance, or minuet.
Lawyers see little profit in suing you.
You can stop applying for research grants or dealing with research review boards.
You don’t need to wash the car or get it fixed.
If you happen to be a dog, you can stop worrying about fleas, ticks, and choke collars.
You don’t care what reviewers say about your books.
You don’t have to go through any job interviews.
Kids don’t expect Halloween candy from you.
No one cares whether you keep kosher.
You don’t have to make up snow days.
Nobody expects you to remember the trigonometry, American history, or Spanish that you studied in high school.
You don’t have to register for the draft, walk the dog, sort the laundry, or take the garbage out.
Unknown people don’t try to “friend” you on Facebook.
You don’t care how much noise people make.
No one phones you during dinner or when you’re on the pot.
You don’t have to spend time commuting to work.
Nobody asks if you are old enough to drink, drive, or see rated-X movies.
Nobody says what a cute/ugly little kid you are.
You don’t need to floss.
You don’t have sing the national anthem or listen to it sung by a bad pop star.
Crazed fanatics don’t declare jihads against you.
You don’t worry about falling asleep in class.
Nobody talks about Habermas, Bordieu, Foucault, Gramsci, or Derida.
It makes no difference whether you ever learned to swim.
An evil fairy won’t appear at your birth and curse you to sleep for 100 years starting on your 15th birthday.

You don’t have to go on probation.
You don’t have to figuire out where you left your car or your grocery cart.
You are free of Google Chat, Microsoft Teams, Facebook likes, Facebook ads, and Twitter tweets.
There is no need to drive on crowded freeways.
You don’t have to go to gym class.
Old ladies do not tell you to carry a sweater “just in case it gets cold at night.”
You are unperturbed by jars that won’t open, programs that won’t run, and kids who won’t listen.
People aren’t offended if you can’t remember their names.
People don’t knock at the door when you are on the toilet.
Nobody yells at you for being out after curfew.
Your back doesn’t hurt. Neither do your feet.
Parents don’t tell you to eat yucky stuff so you can grow big and strong.
You can ignore operating system upgrades.
Nobody asks if you’re “seeing someone.”
Hong Kong touts (eventually) quit trying to sell you fake Rolexes.
People don’t speak to you in baby talk.
Librarians don’t reprimand you for making too much noise.
Nobody cares if you’re ugly.
If you speak up, people pay attention.
Pushy strangers don’t butt in front of you in line.
Real estate salesmen don’t try to sell you useless land in the desert.
Rush hour doesn’t slow you down.
Indian accents are no more obscure than any other kind.
You don’t give a damn how much they charge for a seat at the opera.
You don’t have to remember the code for the copy machine, your Microsoft password, or where you left your grocery cart.
Crackpots don’t try to explain to you how they alone understand the mysteries of past civilizations.
You no longer need to get a divorce.
You don’t have to be a designated driver or default baby sitter.
You don’t get appointed to committees.
People in Beijing, Paris, and New York don’t expect you to pay extra attention to them.
You don’t care if the toilet paper has run out.
You can ignore instructions from the flight crew.
People stop trying to persuade you that cryptocurrency makes sense.
Students don’t ask you to raise their grade.
Computers don’t address you by your first name.
Your mother doesn’t expect you to grow up to be a genius.
You don’t have to look at nag boxes or pop-up windows.
You don’t have to calculate how much income tax you owe.
Sending Christmas cards is unnecessary and would only alarm people.
Previous sexual partners don’t try to attach your wages.
Your kids don’t pester you to buy them expensive electronics.
They don’t hold up the poker game because you are late.
You don’t have to pick strawberries, clean fish, or pluck chickens.
Nobody tells you not to wear stripes and plaids together
Gushy old ladies don’t expect you to kiss them.
There are no mammograms, pap smears, or prostate exams.
Nobody tells you to lose weight, sit up straight, or lay off the gin.
You don’t need to ask anybody for a letter of recommendation.
You don’t have to take out the garbage, or unload the dish washer.
You don’t have to give up anything for Lent.
You don’t have to reset clocks to accommodate daylight-saving time.
Nobody bullyrags you about donating your car to support public broadcasting.
You don’t need to think about Apple, Google, or Microsoft ever again, and malign techies stop telling you to switch to Linux.
People stop asking your opinion about things they have already made up their minds about.
Sunburn doesn’t lead to skin cancer.
Nobody tells you to keep the line moving.
You don’t worry about having to lose weight.
Mobile phone companies don’t try to confuse you about their data rates.
You don’t have to attend training sessions about ethnic sensitivity, sexual harassment, lab safety, intellectual integrity, retirement options, alternative health plans, or conflict of interest regulations.
You don’t give a damn if your identity is stolen.
Nobody expects you to spend Christmas with in-laws.
Your mommy doesn’t scold you for wetting the bed, and you don’t have to be the mommy who cleans up after a kid who wets the bed.
The government doesn’t draft you, tax you, or put you on juries, and in many countries it takes care of casting your vote for you.
It’s hard for repairmen to cheat you.
It’s not your responsibility to walk the dog and you don’t care how much it slobbers, barks, whines, wees, or chews on the furniture.
You don’t need any more vaccinations, skin biopsies, or colonoscopies.
The fork can go on either side of the plate.
The post office doesn’t deliver bills or junk mail.
There are no more multiple-choice tests.
You don’t need to understand the new accounting software.
Nobody cares if your driver’s license has expired.
You don’t snore in church or cough in concerts.
Excessive drinking doesn’t lead to passing out, hangovers, or ill-advised tattoos.
Words can be spelled any way you want.
Nobody drags you to karaoke bars.
You are immune to computer viruses.
You don’t have to juggle conflicting appointments.
You don’t worry much about global warming.
You’re done with iceberg lettuce once and for all.
You don’t have to fill out forms.
You don’t have to rake leaves, shovel snow, pull weeds, pick strawberries, or mow the lawn.
You don’t have to memorize poems for English class or learn lines for the school play.
Nobody expects you to be a bird watcher, rock hound, or sports fan.
You lose your fear of heights.
Nobody expects you to remember an account number.
You don’t have to dispose of hairballs, man a pooper-scooper, or clean up spilled stuff.
Nobody urges you to live a little.
People stop telling you what you ought (not) to read.
Cholesterol is irrelevant.
You are really convincing if you walk around as a zombie on Halloween.
You don’t have to worry about the oatmeal boiling over.
It doesn’t matter that the clock in the car is always slightly off.
Belly dancers, hypnotists, and cheap comedians don’t try to pull you onto the stage with them.
You don’t have to figure out how to turn the closed-captioning on or off.
Nobody worries about whether your teeth are your own.
You don’t have to get permission for anything from your mother, your supervisor, your spouse, your parole officer, or your Primary Care Physician.
People give up on trying to get you to declare a different college major.
You are at peace with crab grass and garden snails. (Gophers not so much.)
You have really high sales resistance.
You don’t need to worry about posting bond.
You don’t have to save for retirement.
You don’t have to bus your own dishes.
Student activists don’t march on your office.
You don’t have to worry about where to put things.
You don’t have diarrhea, constipation, or coughing fits.
The insurance company stops raising your deductible.
You don’t give a damn about the damage inflicted on the world by populist proto-dictators like Vladimir Putin, Benyamin Netanyahu, Tayyip Erdoğan, Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban, Narendra Modri, or The Idiot Trump.
Flies and archaeologists think you are fascinating.
There is no risk of dropping the cafeteria tray, the collection plate, the communion chalice, the Torah scroll, or the baby.
There is no reason to care whether Macs and PCs are incompatible.
You don’t have to herd cattle, slop pigs, muck stalls, break horses, gut fish, or sex chicks.
Aging gold-diggers lose interest in marrying you.
People give up trying to potty-train you.
European philosophers won’t be on any exams.
Your Russian teacher doesn’t make you sing.
The telephone doesn’t ring before you wake up or just as you are going out.
It doesn’t matter if you split infinitives.
You quit caring whether people mix up “may” and “might” or “affect” and “effect” or “went” and “gone.”
Pompous but insecure people don’t try to bully you into saying you agree with them.
Bran and wheat germ are irrelevant.
You don’t need to reset the clocks for Daylight Savings Time.
Mariachi bands, belly dancers, and gypsy violinists don’t expect you to tip them.
It stops making any difference that the Republican Party has fallen into the hands of jackasses.
You never have to use anybody’s voice mail, navigate anybody’s phone tree, or listen to anybody’s elevator music.
You don’t need to distinguish between running shoes and walking shoes.
You don’t have to sit at the children’s table.
You can be certain that you won’t slip and fall in the middle of a jété, temps levé, or pas de chat.
Freudian theory doesn’t apply.
They don’t send you to prison no matter what you do.
Nothing makes you cough, sneeze, or break out in bumps.
It doesn’t matter whether the discount coupon has expired or not.
You don’t have to put up or take down storm windows, change the furnace filter, or clean out the septic tank.
There is no need to make the bed.
Tuneless music, ostentatious prose, and hideous architecture don’t bother you.
Nobody says you talk too much.
It doesn’t matter how wide your tie is
You stop noticing people’s English errors.
People stop calling you a young whippersnapper or a senile old fart.
The President doesn’t send you to be killed in a foreign war that Congress never declared.
The office of Human Resources doesn’t try to meet Affirmative Action quotas by keeping “statistics” about your age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, or sexual orientation.
You can ignore all alarm clocks.
Elderly women don’t keep telling you not to drive so fast or pull in front of you so they can force you to drive very very slowly.
Nobody tells you that it’s past your bed time.
Doctors don’t tell you to drink less, floss more, or wear sun screen.
It doesn’t matter if you can’t find your glasses.
Cleaning ladies, garbage collectors, and construction trucks don’t come early in the morning in order to wake you up prematurely.
Russian prostitutes don’t try to proposition you on Skype.
You don’t get birthday cards teasing you about your age.
People don’t tell you that you are full of promise.
Nobody expects you to make an impromptu speech.
People don’t come to the door to serve warrants, ask for your vote, or give you copies of The Watchtower.
You have no risk of being sent to the principal’s office.
Financial advisers stop trying to help you plan for retirement.
Old people don’t say, “Oh, how you’ve grown!”
It’s okay if the plumbing doesn’t work.
Nobody tells you to shut up.
You don’t give a damn how the election turns out.
Wailing children and/or howling animals don’t waken you in the night.
You aren’t allergic to anything.
You are a whole lot more gothic than people who are alive.
You don’t have to worry about dying.

A really big DIS-advantage of being dead is the prevalence of incredibly tacky, faded plastic flowers.

Return to top.

All photos by DKJ