I had to call my HMO to ask about something, and I was put on hold for a little while; and while on hold, a recorded voice told me over and over again that every 39 seconds, someone dies of a heart attack. I didn’t think much of it at first, except perhaps: “That’s too bad.” But as I waited on hold longer and longer, and the same recorded voice informed me again and again that every 39 seconds, someone dies of a heart attack, I started thinking about what that means, exactly. And by this, I don’t mean the gravity of the issue of so many people dying, but rather, the issue of the logistics of setting up and sticking to a schedule like that.
Think about it: They’re basically telling me that there is a rigorous schedule that must be adhered to for people to die by heart attack (!). But how could they possibly orchestrate such a complex schedule? And who accomplishes this task? There must be a list of people, and every 39 seconds, the next person on the list must die of a mandatory heart attack, and on and on down the list. But what if someone is late? What if they survive the heart attack unexpectedly? That would completely screw up the whole schedule! What would they do then? And more importantly, I suppose, is this: How could they possibly do such a thing (morally and logistically)?
This must be the “Death Panels” issue Sarah Palin was talking about! So, this is the dark side of Obamacare: Someone must die every 39 seconds by government mandate! I knew it! Those murderers, forcing people to die every 39 seconds just because the government says so! Talk about a nanny state: It’s the nanny from that movie The Nanny about the murderous nanny! It all makes sense now! And then I guess the heart attack victims must be made into Soylent Green! And this is probably the “healthy lunch” they’re trying to force our children to eat: It’s made out of people! It’s PEOPLE!!
Well, as horrifying as this all is, at least it shows how efficient the government can be when it really wants to be. It may take all day to wait in line to renew your driver’s license, but when it comes time to die from a heart attack, they’ve got it down to a science, such that someone is literally dying of a heart attack every 39 seconds. But this still begs the question: why every 39 seconds? That’s got to be a hassle, what with the odd number and all, to count down on a stopwatch to be sure the next person dies on time. Why not make it one every 30 seconds, or two a minute, let’s say at the top of every minute? How about just one per minute? Or how about just having everyone for that day die at the same time? Wouldn’t that be easier? Maybe the government simply wants to impress us all with their exacting standards of fatal heart attack efficiency after being bashed as incompetent and inefficient for so many years. And maybe they chose heart attack death for their efficiency example to get revenge for all the insults about their inefficiency for so long.
You’d think they’d actually want to be more efficient at saving lives, but hey: at least they’re efficient at something, right?
(BTW: This is obviously just a joke, as the government is way too incompetent to achieve such a thing. Maybe in my case they would make an exception, but I'm pretty sure they don't actually do this sort of thing. But this idea of every so many seconds something happens: this is a completely fraudulent statistical presentation! Just tell us how many per year: at least that's honest. I think the idea is to scare us into healthy living, but it makes dying seem more like a hassle for which one must be punctual: kind of like jury duty.)
