An idea for a morbid buisness...

Feeling better. Back at work. Life goes on. I used my period of bedridden conjestion to do some writing, and a whole lot of thinking.

It occurs to me, in this era of information sharing and communication, that there are a lot of people out there that care about me that I’ve never even met. I know that a lot of you tune in to my rantings because you have some connection to me, be it friend of a friend, distant cousin, or whatever… but there are others that I only know through the internet, and that only know me through my blog.

Sometimes, this worries me. Specifically, it worries me that something could happen to these people that I have come to care about, and I would never know. Conversely, if anything was to (god forbid) happen to me, who would let my readers know?

I know it seems minor, but for those of us that live far from our relatives the problem is even worse… If I was to get seriously injured (unlikely, I know… Dizzy has put forth the hypothesis that I am Unbreakable) I’d like to think that someone would call my parents if I was unable to, but what about my friends that are now scattered across the country? How long would it take before ANY of my friends even noticed that I was missing? When I was married, this was never a problem… Charity generally knew what time I was coming home, where I was, etc., and would raise the alarm if I didn’t show after 24 hours or so… but now? Okay, so it worries me much more than it should for a healthy man that no one “checks up on me” with any regularity. Not really what I’m getting at.

I think it would be a neat internet subscription service that could, in the event that something does happen to you, e-mail everyone on your list, and update your blog, informing the world that something bad happened, how you are, your prognosis, and in the event of your demise, your funeral/memorial arrangements. I would call it e-surance, but I’m fairly sure that name has been taken.

Of course, I’m a little unclear what would trigger it, too. I’m thinking a weekly “reply or we start worrying” e-mail would prompt some sort of inquiry when unanswered. There’s probably some way to make it automatic, but I confess I’m not bright enough to figure this out. If anyone else wants to take the ball and run with it, just cut me in for ten percent and check up on me once a week, and I’ll be happy.