Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

Actuary: (n.) a person who compiles and analyzes statistics and uses them to calculate insurance risks and  premiums.

It looked like it was gonna be fun.

It was put out by one of those famous insurance companies as a kind of test balloon to help people understand their situation with life insurance, and also their own personal well-being and health. It was a quiz with twenty-five questions which you were supposed to answer truthfully, and after you submitted your answers, they would send you, within a very short time via email, the proposed date of your death, based on the information you provided.

It was probably quite ridiculous, but still seemed like a good way to kill an hour while I was waiting for the next piece of excitement to leap into my life. So I started answering the questions, being painfully honest, and within about fifteen minutes, I completed the quiz.

I followed the instructions carefully, submitted my conclusions, and about thirty minutes later, I received an automated-response email from the website, with my day and year of death.

Now, when I finished the test, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But what came back to me was a real surprise. Dare I say—a shocker?Because according to the results of my quiz and the actuary tables of this particular insurance company, I had been dead already for two years, three months and four days.

Thinking there had been some sort of error made in the transfer of material, I persisted by filling out the quiz one more time—with a little less candor. But this time I was nervous and hovered around my computer, waiting for the ding to ring my ongoing faith in some sort of longevity.

True to form, half an hour later, there was my response.

I had acquired five extra months through my lying.

This was several years ago. So I don’t put much faith in actuary tables or predictions on human lifespan. I guess it works this way: you keep taking deep breaths and moving forward until you’re not able to breathe anymore. At that point you will get the actual day and time of your death.

So in closing, I would not recommend that you take one of these tests unless you want to insert the data of an Olympic athlete.

For me, I will just wait and see if my eyes open in the morning, smile if they do—and realize that I cheated the computer out of one more day.