In My Next Life, I Hope to Come Back as Either a Dictator or the phrase “Oh no, you sunk my battleship!”

What does the afterlife hold for us? Actually, scrap that last sentence. I think an even better question would be, is there an afterlife at all, or just a supermarket aisle full of dim lights over the frozen food section with expiration dates that never get turned (my vision of hell).

Well, in all truths, I don’t care. If there is an afterlife, swell, you’ll still owe me five bucks. If there isn’t, still swell, I’ll get to spend time with all the gravediggers and maggots I feel I’ve neglected over the years. But I think the true point I’m trying to make here is that if there’s neither, then I hope there’s reincarnation because I’d really like to come back as either a dictator or the coined phrase, “Oh no, you sunk my battleship!”

If I were the former (the dictator guy thingy), than I would rule with a copper fist and teach the children that there is no shame in drinking toilet water from a construction site porta potty as long as it serves the national interest of the country. I would be both fair and tolerable.

If I were to become the latter, though, well, that’d be all sorts of different now, wouldn’t it? As a coined catchphrase, my responsibility is both stern and nonrefundable. A child, for instance, disappointed to the max after their opponent gets all the little red pegs in his tiny vessel very well couldn’t shout, “Oh no, you sunk my battleship,” if the opponent really DIDN’T sink his battleship, and instead destroyed a submarine or, (Lord have mercy on my Lego collection!) a patrol boat. That’s…that’s just plain sin in a pack of condoms.

If I were that phrase, then, my responsibility would be to make the kid’s head explode right in front of his opponent if he were to utter the phrase out of context, which I think is both fair and legal in its practice. I heavily hope to come back the latter.