eaten vs. consumed

If you accept the fact that we are all going to die one day, I think getting eaten sounds like a good way to go. The whole ‘circle of life’ thing.

Of course, there are various considerations and variables to be taken into account, but even with all the screaming and teeth and/or claws, it remains a solid option.

Obviously I would want to be completely eaten. I wouldn’t want any of me to go to waste. Death by bear or lion would be right up there, but I think being swallowed whole by an enormous shark would sit atop the list of potential ways to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Ironically, killer whales would be at the very bottom given their inclination to only eat my liver, leaving the rest of me to slowly sink into the icy depths. A final resting place like that is bound to make a man salty, over and above the saltiness inherent with dying in the ocean.

Eaten in the morning, digested during the afternoon and then excreted out that night. That sounds to me like a full day to me. Ashes to ashes and whatnot.

Now the candy bar gets to be a little cheeky on its way out. Being unwrapped before being eaten seems a little like undressing as your final act.

Cheeky.

On the other hand, being a bottle of laundry detergent presents us with a few challenges. Do you get a rush of pride when you are lifted from amongst your stain-fighting comrades on the shelf and put into the cart at the grocery store? Is that decision a result of the collective unconscious of surfactants and enzymes all over the world whispering muse-like to marketing execs “Make the plastic a brighter red” or “Put an adorable panda on the label”?

Once my cap is opened and my contents dumped into the washing machine, is my cognitive function diminished with every load? After a few weeks, am I sitting in the laundry room babbling away and driving the fabric softener and cleaning products up the wall? And what about the walls? Where do they go? Barely coherent as the final splash of me is emptied into the washer. A washer perhaps filled with delicates, all but assuring that I go gently into that good night… and maybe finally learning where all the missing socks went.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, stubborn dirt and grime, you get the picture.

Makes you wonder how terrible a place the landfill must be, filled with nearly-but-not-quite-empty bottles mumbling and rambling to themselves in a perpetually confused state. Eventually the plastic is no longer as bright and the jovial-looking panda has long peeled off. Acres and acres of nursing home for never-dying consumer products.

So I guess that makes recycling similar to being eaten by a shark.

The whole ‘circle of life’ thing… assuming that the edge of an infinitely large circle appears to be a straight line to dopes like us.

To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn

-The Byrds