10. Eaten by a bear.

9. Eaten by a lion.

Normally, this guy would make #1 on the list.

8. Eaten by a shark.

7. Eaten by a cannibal (full-time or spur of the moment)

6. Burned at the stake

5. Tortured by the CIA or KGB or any three-initial agency.

4. Jumping from the window of an 80-story building rather than dying inside it.

3. Anything that involves prolonged bleeding out.

2. Made into the left arm of a skin tuxedo shortly after spending several weeks in a pit in some psycho’s basement well-oiled with copious amounts of Lubriderm.

1.  Sitting on my couch covered in Betadine and swallowing $2000 worth of iodine pills, while nonetheless being irradiated to death by a the meltown of a Japanese nuclear power plant 5000 miles away.

There.

I cannot watch this actor in anything without thinking of this scene. Remember on Family Guy when Meg embarrasses Chris by showing the other kids a video where he's re-enacting this scene? My god: so funny.

I said it.

I don’t like this one bit, and if I’m understanding all this correctly, it’s probably the only item on the list somewhat likely to happen. Or at least 5% likely which is entirely too likely for my liking.

I don’t like it, and I’m not sure I understand it, and I don’t feel terribly empowered to outsmart it. In fact, I’m rather scared and somewhat freaking the fuck out.

Most likely the government is lying to us. Our government, Japan’s government, anybody in the know. In fact, I suspect anyone who knows anything real is probably whispering a soothing “there, there” while quietly slipping into a NBC suit and heading into their insulated underground survival chamber. Rita Rudner has a bit about flying in which she suggests that the air masks aren’t really to provide oxygen to the passengers: they’re to muffle their screams.

I’m feeling the same way about this iodine thing.

Or maybe I feel that way because I don’t have any, and I’m not really interested in going down a la John Cusack in FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY. I haven’t seen that movie in fifteen years, but I still remember that particular scene: not good.

So that’s it.

I’m having some generalized anxiety about all this, and I’m not really sure what to do about it. I suppose I’ll soon bounce and return to my old standbys: shameless positive thinking and excess sweep-it-under-the-rug denial.  However, and until then, I will remain uncomfortable and uneasy: it’s quite possibly the end of the world as we know it, and I do not feel fine.