don't let me down.

I hope that someday I have occasion to be admitted to the hospital. I don’t want anything life threatening, but whatever malady does beset me, it must be serious enough that the doctor has to come out into the waiting room and update Angela regarding my status. I’m thinking like a high ankle sprain. Or some sort of table saw-induced finger loss. Even a burst appendix would be fine as long as they caught it before my own lethal juices began poisoning me. It all sounds like good fun.

But why, you ask, would I wish injury upon myself? Simple. Months ago I made Angela promise that if this situation every arose, she would look the doctor square in the eyes and insist that he “pull the plug.” He’d get all flustered and confused because I wouldn’t even be plugged into anything. Not thirty seconds previous he watched me leaf through the pages of the Home and Garden magazine I found on the bedside table in my hospital room. He’d try to explain to Angela that her husband is plenty able to breathe and eat and sustain life on his own, but, in accordance with our agreement, Angela would interrupt. She'd rehearse that her and I had discussed the issue and I had made my wishes abundantly clear. “He wouldn’t want to continue living like this,” Angela would sputter. “Pull the plug, doctor.”

The doctor would protest. Or sit in silent shock. I don’t care which. I just want to see his face when he returns to the side of my hospital bed.

My only fear is that Angela will break her promise. Instead of accomplishing the prank we’d together conceived, she might act all worried and junk. She might even feel bad messing with an ER doctor on hour twenty-two of his twenty-four hour shift. But she better do it. She promised. And if she doesn’t fulfill her promise, I just don’t know if I’ll be able to trust her ever again.