Ensign Redshirt: Eight AM

With all of this panic about terrorist activities—incidentally, does that Terror Alert color ever change?—I’ve been very focused on death. It’s heavy. Once you get past, what, 16, death is an exponentially increasing possibility. Fortunately, because most 16-year-olds think they are invincible, it takes a while before the perception of imminent death makes one buy a new red sports car. Still … heavy.

The record holder for avoiding death is Jeanne Louise Calment. As the oldest documented human, Ms. Calment spent most of her 122 years and 164 days relaxing, until her untimely death in 1997. (As Fletch says, “But the end. The end was very sudden.”) She married into money and didn’t have to work, something she credited with her longevity. Her successor, Marie-Louise Meilleur, didn’t even last one year as the title holder of Oldest Living Human. The current champ is Yone Minagawa of Japan, who will have to live at least until 2015 to dethrone Calment.

If I may make an understatement, Jeanne lived a full life. She met Vincent Van Gogh at age 14 when the artist visited Arles. At age 114, became the oldest actress ever when she showed up on screen for Vincent and Me. Jeanne also attended the funeral of Victor Hugo. I have a hunch it was a miserable event. The highlight of her life may have been a rent-control scam she pulled off in 1965. As is common in France, Jeanne signed a deal at age 90 to sell her condominium apartment to someone, a lawyer named Raffray who was some 43 years younger than Calment. Raffray died of cancer in 1995 when he was 77, leaving his widow to keep up the payments on the reverse mortgage. Sweet.

I may take a break and go fishing with my son. But what’s the point? I’ll only be interrupted and brought back here to disarm a nuclear bomb. It’s like clockwork.

Transmission ended!