The idea of dying never appealed to me much. Even when I was a kid, watching the Adventures of Roadkyll Raccoon and Darren Headlightz, I always found it suspicious the way Roadkyll got flattened at the end of each cartoon and yet was back for more in the next episode. It didn’t mesh with any reality I knew. According to the way I was raised, there are really just a few possibilities of what happens to you in the hereafter.

Option one: It turns out you’re less of a miserable person than you thought you were, and you go to heaven.

Option two: You’re not quite the wonderful person you thought you were, and you go to the other place that people these days spell with double hockey sticks, which, by the way, doesn’t make much sense, because that’s the only sport they can’t play down there unless they’re skating on boiling water instead of ice, but it ain’t gonna happen, because all the walk-on-water types’ll be up in heaven.

I did a report on heaven for Sunday school once, so I know all about it. In heaven, you’re with your dead relatives, it’s always sunny, and everyone’s got nice views—no one’s looking at a disgusting landfill or anything. I gotta tell you, though, if I gotta spend eternity with all my relatives, everybody hugging and walking with God and stuff, I’ll go crazy. It sounds like my cousin Gina’s wedding before people got drunk. I hope God don’t mind me saying so, but it all sounds very hockey-stickish to me.

As for the place down under, the girl who did her report on it got all her information from horror movies, so, aside from really good special effects, her version is highly suspect. Supposedly there are like nine levels, and each one is worse than the last. Imagine a barbecue where you’re sizzling on the grill—but it’s not accidental like my dad last summer. And the thing about it is, you cook like one of them Costco roasts that’s somehow thicker than an entire cow, so no matter how long you sit there, you’re still rare in the middle for all eternity.