Written
Pieces
"Final
Wishes" -- [2/23/06]
If
you’re reading this, my roommate and good friend Nikos has posted this
because I have, by some safety oversight on my part I’m sure, been put
into a vegetative coma. Inspired by recent hub-ub over the life and
fate
Terri Schiavo, I have laid out my specific wishes should I be placed in
the same tragic situation so that my
family and friends will not have to weather the pain of
deciding my fate.
Make no mistake World, PULL THE PLUG. I, Danny Ricker, hereby state
that should I be rendered immobile with hope of communicating
with the world outside my own head, I would like to be put out of my
misery. This declaration, however, is not without a few minor
stipulations. While I definitely do not want to be kept
alive in a physical or mental limb, I am requesting that I meet my
demise in one of the following ways:
1) Bare-knuckle fight with a shark
-I
realize this will be hard, as I am in a coma, but this is
something I’ve always wanted to do. I would suggest rigging me up using
some sort of underwater pulley system. The situation must be that I am
in the open sea (or perhaps the Shark Experience at San
Diego’s Sea World) with at least two other people. The
circumstances must be dire, and I must bravely decide to take the beast
on mano-a-sharko. While I will, of course, perish by the end of
this battle, I want to put up a “good fight” for at least 8 minutes,
perhaps by punching the shark directly in the nose (which I heard as a
child is the only way for a human to hurt a shark.) My two or more
surviving
companions will be rescued shortly thereafter by the Coast Guard (Or a
Sea
World staff member). They will tell my tale to all available
media outlets and girls who turned me down for dates. A movie will be
made about my story starring John Voight.
2) Shot directly into the Sun
-I
think this one if self-explanatory. Find/build the most powerful
cannon on the planet, dress me up in Evil Knievel’s 1968 stuntsuit from
when he jumped the fountain at Caesar’s Palace, and fire me directly
into the surface of the sun. While expensive, I’m sure sponsorship
could easily be found for such an event. As a final wish, I would like
Adidas to make commemorative “Danny
Ricker Got Fired Into The Surface of the
Sun on [date of launch] and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt!”
shirts
and sell them to my family at a discounted price.
3) Mistaken for Tom Cruise, mauled by fans in Japanese airport
-Throughout
my life, people have constantly mistaken me for the illustrious
Tom Cruise (undoubtedly exemplified in the photo above). My final (and
admittedly, favorite) termination option is to be mistaken for Mr.
Cruise in a Japanese airport and torn limb from limb by a pack of
ravenous admirers. While temptation may be great to learn the Japanese
phrase for “Wait! Wait! He is not
Tom Cruise!” please understand I
would have wanted it this way. If you do choose this option, please
wait to do it around the release of that Top Gun sequel I’ve been
waiting for since I was a kid. If it seems unlikely this will ever
happen (with my last breath, I curse Hollywood!) just carry out my
wishes around the release of Mission: Impossible (whatever # they're
making at the time).
It
was nice knowing all of you. If you can, tape whichever one of these
you choose and try to get the DVD to me. I don’t know if they have DVD
players in the afterlife, but its worth a shot.
Sincerely,
Daniel Wayne Ricker
