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About the Author
Gina Barreca is a professor of English and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut. Her books include They Used to Call Me Snow White, but I Drifted; Perfect Husbands and Other Fairy Tales; Babes in Boyland; and, with Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post, I'm With Stupid. She's written or edited other books on vice, Victorians and sex, American humor, the erotics of instruction, The Sopranos, women's humor, and Italian-American literature. She will blog about teaching, sex, humor, money, publishing, ambition, books, marriage, envy (professional and personal), politics (professional and personal), aging, and cartoons.
About Brainstorm
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John L. Jackson Jr.
Stan Katz
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Eric BanksDan Greenberg
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Marty Nemko, guest blogger
Graham Spanier
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Recent Posts
The One Kind of Woman Who Drives Me Crazy | Comment [20]
Questions Concerning Women and Comedy | Comment [34]
'And I'd Like to Thank My Wife for ...' | Comment [89]
Teaching and Tenure | Comment [25]
'That's Our Mistress!' Follow-Up | Comment [29]
Featured Articles By the Author
'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?
Comments
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21. I should have saved more money in my rainy day fund – just in case!
— D. · Feb 27, 05:22 PM · #
22. Dang it! I think I left the milk out.
— EM · Feb 27, 06:59 PM · #
3. I wish I’d spent more time revising.
— gigi · Feb 27, 09:59 PM · #
24. I should have spent far more time in committee meetings discussing whether or not sub-categories might be established within the main body of the document in order to clarify the main points. That would have been a good use of my weekend afternoons.
— Freddy Uptown · Feb 27, 10:03 PM · #
I wish I’d argued more forcefully for the Second Amendment than the First. You gotta problem with that?
— S. Britchky · Feb 28, 05:30 AM · #
52.75.C2 Why is this taking so long?
— Jesse · Feb 28, 06:15 AM · #
I wish I spent more sleepless nights worrying about what color to paint the dining room.
— EBC · Feb 28, 07:09 AM · #
Why, oh why could I not get the mildew out of my grout in the bathroom?
— Kim Wells · Feb 28, 08:35 AM · #
I wish I’d named my little sailboat in San Diego Harbor, “Rather be Commuting” like I thought of doing but feared I’ld be taken literally for a drudge rather than for the wild and crazy guy I sometimes fancy myself as or as … (cut off, truncatedly, by the Great Editor in the Sky.)).
— Bill Burke · Feb 28, 09:06 AM · #
Why didn’t I get into World of Warcraft when I had the chance?
— CV · Feb 28, 09:26 AM · #
Why didn’t I enlist in the navy so I could see the world?
— ddl · Feb 28, 09:39 AM · #
Why didn’t I spend more time crying over that milk I spilled back in ’81?!
— Nina Lomando-Grigoreas · Feb 28, 10:52 AM · #
If only I could remember what that Gypsy told me in Seville.
— Lee A. Jacobus · Feb 28, 01:04 PM · #
I’m so glad I’m dying before my spouse does!
— Emile Discard · Feb 28, 01:55 PM · #
Why didn’t I ever use my crockpot?
— Elizabeth Welch · Feb 28, 01:57 PM · #
Why did I spend all that time worrying about retirement when I could have spent my money on plastic surgery and a cruise in the Greek Isles instead of leaving it to my kids – the little bast…..
— MUAP · Feb 28, 02:16 PM · #
Well…this is nice.
— Mark · Feb 28, 02:35 PM · #
Why didn’t I spend the HOURS it would take to figure out the convuluted rules customers of Staples are supposed to know in order to benefit from the Staples Rewards retail scam? Why oh why didn’t I leap into the car and drive to the nearest Borders the moment the 20% coupon-that-only-counts-for-the-next-six-hours lands in my email box? Why didn’t I LEAP at that Kohl’s come-on (the 14th to arrive this week) saying this was THE BEST SALE YET!!!—?
— upside · Feb 28, 03:37 PM · #
If only I had time to finish Atlas Shrugged.
— David · Feb 28, 04:33 PM · #
If only I had not finished Atlas Shrugged.
— C · Feb 28, 05:54 PM · #
If only I’d slept with that college professor…
— Milena · Feb 28, 07:43 PM · #
Where are my keys?
— Rena · Feb 28, 11:53 PM · #
My last words might be, “I wish I had spent more time alphabetizing my spices.” I really like doing that.
— madame smartypants · Feb 29, 05:23 AM · #
Should have bought the brown mascara. Waterproof.
ggg
— sephora · Feb 29, 07:21 AM · #
Paper or plastic?
— Bible Spice · Feb 29, 07:38 AM · #
Oh, come on! You get it. The people who say that mean that one should spend more time with family or just loving those around us (not at work as most people aren’t teachers) and doing things that are emotionally restoring and envigorating.
— Linda Petty · Feb 29, 08:49 AM · #
If only I had conclusive proof that pro wrestling wasn’t real.
— Anna B. · Feb 29, 09:23 AM · #
Finally I can do something to significantly reduce my carbon footprint.
— Erik D. · Feb 29, 09:44 AM · #
One more hit off the morphine drip, please.
— marci · Feb 29, 10:15 AM · #
1. I wish I’d stayed with that first job and earned a bigger pension.
2. I wish I’d worked harder to save my first marriage.
— Don P. · Feb 29, 12:17 PM · #
If only I’d spent more time and patience on that useless lump of a man who truly believed a woman’s place is pregnant in the kitchen! Four years was not enough, I should have given him one more chance! Woe, woe is poor career-centered me!
— KAD · Feb 29, 01:52 PM · #
If only I hadn’t had that second scoop of ice cream or that second slice of cake….
If only I had drunk the recommended ounces of water…
If only I had spend more time waiting by the phone…
— Hannah · Mar 1, 09:45 AM · #
Thank L. Ron I discovered Scientology. Gasp….
— C · Mar 1, 04:11 PM · #
I wish, just ONCE, I could have gotten up to 10,000 steps a day… I just kept losing count.
Sigh… and I did never learn how to apply make-up…
— Catalin Dunnett · Mar 1, 07:49 PM · #
Sure wish I’d been an administrator.
— nomad · Mar 2, 08:56 PM · #
Actually I prefer some of the famous epitaphs and parting words —- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Quotations
Famous peoples last words —- http://www.digital-karma.org/culture/quotes/famous-peoples-last-words
Last Words of Real People —- http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6537/realidx.htm
Last Words of Fictional Characters —- http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6537/fictidx.htm
Famous Epitaphs —- http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6537/epitaphs.htm
Other Last Words —- http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6537/
— Robert E. Jensen · Mar 3, 10:39 AM · #
It would have been a good idea to read more closely the comments students wrote on those course evaluation forms.
— Rob · Mar 3, 01:57 PM · #
Yo, Orpheus. Don’t look back this time.
— Epiphany · Mar 3, 04:10 PM · #