Deathitude

In 1521, Emperor Charles V issued the Edict of Worms [pronounced "verms"], essentially a papal hit on Martin Luther, eliminating the annoying legal, social, and eternal consequences normally attached to taking a human life.
Now, in 2009, and here, in a country where each of us is, or should be, the Emperor and Pope of his own destiny, I hereby issue my own personal Edict of Worms.

Which is to say . . .
Under the following conditions, I will not consider it murder to kill me:

1) If I am in a persistent vegetative state.

2) If I am incontinent of bowel for a prolonged period of time, and there is no surgical option.

3) If I lose my mind to the extent that I am reliving any experience from any year between 1986 and 1993.

4) If I ever seriously consider running for public office.

5) If I start my own church. [ed. note: this is NOT in ANY WAY a knock on Keith Lowell Jensen]

6) If I join the democrat party.

7) If I join the republican party.

8) If I ever get so fat that the paramedics have to cut a new door to remove me from the house.

9) If I kill another person in cold blood.

10) If I get definitive proof that Emily Dickinson is waiting for me on the other side.

11) If I ever audition for American Idol.

12) If the world stops making sushi.

This edict I issue, being of sound mind and body, on this, the 16th of February, 2009.