Water is sure to play a part in my eventual demise

I’m not sure exactly when I’ll die, but I have a good idea how. When the Grim Reaper finally stretches out his skeletal hand for my soul, I’ll be under water.

He’s almost gotten me a dozen times already, the first when I was only three years old and most recently, last summer. I make the Reaper’s job all too easy, because of my love of water.

If there’s water nearby, I want to be in it.

I learned to swim early, taking summer classes at Highland Park pool. Rather than making me safer, learning to swim actually increased the likelihood I would eventually drown. Armed with false confidence, I would head onto a lake with no thought whatsoever of the return trip. I’d swim out until I was exhausted and only then consider the fact I had to swim back again. This made for some interesting near-death experiences.

The most memorable happened when I was 17. I was camping at Lake Michigan, trying to get over the unutterable anguish of having been dumped by a girl whose name I no longer remember. Moping near my little campfire — it must have been around midnight — I decided life simply wasn’t worth living, not if I couldn’t have the girl whose name I no longer remember.

I would never heal. I would forever be miserable. I couldn’t live without her. Such are the musings of a heartsore teenage Lothario.

I walked to the shoreline. A billion billion stars arched across the moonless night sky. No other lights intruded on this deserted stretch of sand. In a dramatic fit of pique such as only a jilted teenager can muster, I decided to end it all. That would teach her, this girl whose name I no longer remember.

I kicked off my jeans. Naked I had entered this world, naked I would leave it.

I waded into the inky, undulating waters and swam away from shore, a tragic hero out of Hemingway or Faulkner. It was all very overwrought and theatrical.

Of course, I had no intention of actually dying. Even then I realized the girl whose name I no longer remember had a rather large nose and a laugh that made my ears bleed.

As I swam, the tide was going out. By the time I noticed, I could no longer see the shore and had no idea in which direction it might lay. There were a few panicky moments as I splashed about like a beached flounder and made hasty deals with God, deals I promptly forgot two minutes after making it back to shore.

Problem was, I washed ashore two miles from my campsite, on a well-lit public beach. Buck naked. Cars and campers lined the parking lot, less than 20 yards from the water’s edge.

I sprinted through the shallows; headlights came on. Once again, the Reaper nearly got me, as I narrowly avoided dying from embarrassment.