'Will This Shroud Make Me Look Fat?'

For years now we’ve been hearing, as if it contained great wisdom: “Nobody on his deathbed ever said ‘I wish I’d spent more time in the office.’”

This is supposed to remind us to enjoy every day and not work too hard. Maybe for some folks that little sanctimonious phrase has played that happy role. All it does for me is make me wonder about the guy on his deathbed. Maybe if he stayed at work, he wouldn’t have contracted St. Vitus’ Dance? Maybe if he’d spent more time at the office, he’d have developed a formula to prevent or a way to cure what’s ailing him?

C’mon, there are worse things to do than work. If you really hate your job, sure, it’s a drag. And rotten jobs are easy to come by. But this well-worn phrase specifies “office” and so implies a fancy job, one of those professions where YOU get to decide how long you work — not a place where somebody else tells you to punch in and out.

The thought that a person’s biggest regret is having spent too much time doing his or her work in life means that the person under discussion here has not found the right kind of labor. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a teacher and teaching is a good job with benefits and teaching is a worthy vocation, blahblahblah (although of course it is and I am grateful). I know some people like to work, however, because of the people I grew up with. My father, for example, who sold window treatments until he was 81 and the Parkinson’s took over, liked his job even more than I like mine, and that’s saying something. Selling stuff to people in Manhattan wasn’t the easiest job, either. One of his prized possession was a sweatshirt declaring: “You can’t scare me. I’m in retail.”

Somehow I don’t think you could sell as many sweatshirts saying “You can’t scare me. I’m in higher education.”

So if you don’t think about work as a waste of time — and since I don’t, I bet you don’t, either — then what IS a waste of time?

I started wondering what might be the last thoughts on having misspent one’s time in life. I started thinking about what St. Peter at the Pearly Gates might deduct points for having spent lots of time doing when you might have been doing something useful (like having a conversation with a friend, or eating, or laughing, or playing with the cats with a wadded-up ball of paper attached to a string, or working, or sleeping).

What are some last lines you’d bet have NEVER been uttered on a deathbed? Here are my suggestions, and I’d like to hear yours:

1. I’m really, really sorry I had all that passionate sex when I was young and beautiful. 2. Why didn’t I ever learn how to floss properly? 3. I wish there had been many more opportunities to watch The Weakest Link. 4. If only I’d carefully read every issue of SHAPE Magazine…. 5. Why, oh why, didn’t I organize my closet according to color and texture of garment? 6. That Kia was the best investment I ever made. 7. I wish I’d learned all the words to the theme songs from Davey Crockett, Growing Pains, and Friends. 8. Why didn’t I spend more time playing the nickel slots? 9. If only I’d had my hair frosted! 10. I wish I had rolled up every single one of my coins into those convenient little paper cylinders…. 11. Is the picture on my driver’s license a good likeness? 12. Can I please have one more spoonful of fat-free yogurt? 13. Life would have had more meaning if only I’d never broken anything in the kitchen. 14. I wish I had spent more time alphabetizing my spices. 15. If only I had mastered the art of decoupage! 16. Why, oh why, wasn’t I given more time to watch all the reruns of Celebrity Rehab? 17. If only my combined S.A.T. score had been 20 points higher, I could rest in peace. 18. Well, I certainly am glad I never told members of my family that I love them. 19. Would that there were one last chance for me to understand fully the intricate workings of my George Foreman’s Lean Mean Grilling Machine! 20. Do you think this shroud will make me look fat?