Remember at the end of the film Animal House when the audience was shown what would happen to all of the main characters? Does it seem fair to you that only fictional characters are allowed to know what their fate will be? What about the rest of us?
What follows is a series of endings that anybody can adopt. Simply go through the list and choose one you feel would be appropriate for your life. Is it likely to be true? Who cares! By the time you actually die, do you think anybody is going to remember?
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] was elected Prime Minister of Canada, but was assassinated three weeks into [HIS/HER] term by a radical Vegan sect that mistook [HIS/HER] belligerent policy towards Corfu as a belligerent policy towards tofu.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] stopped eating [HIS/HER] own boogers and pulling the tail of Bunny, the family’s pet Rotweiller. But, [HIS/HER] third year was no less eventful than the ones preceding it…
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] was happily married for 57 years even though [S/HE] became famous in certain circles for developing a Web site that confused file swapping with wife swapping.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] kind of kicked around for a while before finding [HIS/HER] true calling as a trafficker in illegal Pez dispensers. [S/HE] would eventually be gunned down at the New Mexico border hauling counterfeit Donald Ducks across state lines.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] would use all of [HIS/HER] family’s connections to get into the film industry, but would only get a single credit – third zombie from the back in the remake of Dawn of the Dead – before entering the family business: avian orthodontia.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] made a vast fortune as one of the developers of quantum computers, but disappeared into sub-atomic uncertainty too soon to enjoy any of [HIS/HER] billions.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] went on to write the best book on toad maintenance that the department had ever seen.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] tried to become a veterinarian, but couldn’t stand sticking [HIS/HER] hand up cow anuses. So, [INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] decided to become an electrician, but had to quit when a stray electrical current knocked [HIM/HER] off a 20 foot ladder and onto the love of [HIS/HER] life. [INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] considered a career in taxi dermis, but was forced to reconsider when [S/HE] found out that nobody cared about the skins of cabs. Then, inevitably, [INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] was hit by a bus and spent the next 20 years in a coma, becoming a poster child for the euthanasia movement.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] disappeared without a trace.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] would get an uncomfortable disease from an illegal Pez dispenser, but would otherwise lead a blameless life.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] was sued for copyright infringement for singing the song “Happy Birthday to You” in a home video of [HIS/HER] six year-old son’s birthday party, and soon after became missing, presumed irrelevant.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] spent the next several years eating cardboard, but still couldn’t lose any weight.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] eluded authorities for several years while conducting a murder spree that would eventually take 37 lives. [S/HE] would finally be caught when an enterprising journalist noticed that all of the victims had used the phrase “business solutions” in a public speech in the days before they had died.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] would become the first person to win $1 million in a single year playing video games. Years later, a newly discovered deteriorating mental condition would be named after [HIM/HER].
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] would become an anonymous victim of cricket hooligans.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] died of embarrassment when [S/HE] was forced to take [HIS/HER] 12 year-old daughter to a Britney Spears concert.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] got minor notoriety by writing a book called Naked Came the Cost Accountant.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] would never win the much coveted Lippendorf Literary Prize, but that was only because [S/HE] was functionally illiterate.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] had a visitation on the road to Manassass, telling [HIM/HER] to wander in the desert north of Las Vegas for seven years. After that, [INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] became a vocal representative of a radical Vegan sect with poor hearing.
[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] developed a new and non-fatal, though highly infectious strain of veneral disease, and was immortalized in medical journals throughout the world.