I have put quite a bit of thought into the subject of faking my own death recently. Whether it’s escaping from relatives, or bailing out of some annoying commitment you regret making a few weeks ago, or just a desire to drop off the radar, “dying” is the panacea to a handful of annoying circumstances.

For example, my friend Jacob Divett recently made a deal with the State of New Mexico that he’ll work for them for two years if they’ll pay for his grad school. However, now that he’s finishing up school, we want to go on tour with our band. In Jacob’s case, faking his death is a perfectly acceptable way to duck out of his state contract in order to change the world with high voltage rock and roll. Guilt free, I might add.

You never know when you’ll be confronted with a situation in which faking your death will be the most comfortable alternative, so therefore it helps to be prepared. Which is why I have created….

Step 1. You will need supplies:

A disguise:	Resolve (also known as guts or determination)	Something with your DNA on it (optional)

Step 2. Place yourself in a situation in which you could easily die without a trace. Either make sure you are conspicuous enough that someone sees you so they can tell the authorities later, or make sure that there is plenty of evidence you were there even though a body never turns up. Examples include the following:

A favorite of many, this method is best accomplished by rolling the car off a cliff with a full tank of gas. Visit the wreck at the bottom afterwards and put a fuse in the gas tank. Light, run, and let it explode and slip quietly into the water.

Let everyone know you've gone surfing. Make sure you do so in an area prone to shark attacks. Bring flippers or scuba gear with you and when you go out, break your board on some nasty rocks and then send it floating to shore. Swim away undetected and proceed to step 3.

Drop a shoe and some hair along with all of the contents of your pockets in the concrete of a newly poured construction job on a giant building. Make sure it's something massive enough that they can't tear it down to look for you. A high rise is ideal. Make the shoe protrude slightly from the top of the footing and also stick some of the hair, etc. a little deeper with a few strands sticking out. When you go missing and the shoe gets reported, the forensic 'CSI' people will definitely put two and two together.

Don't floss your teeth for a couple of weeks. When you floss your teeth again, spit all the blood into a cup. Do this a bunch, then dump it all over one of your shirts. Go to an airstrip and throw your shirt, along with a bunch of other crap into a jet engine. The goal is to make it look like you got sucked up with a bunch of other things. They'll find your clothes and your blood among everything else, and when they don't find any of your body parts, they won't be surprised. It was a jet engine for heaven's sake!

Step 3. Put on your disguise.

Step 4. Move somewhere where no one you know will find you for a while. Suggestions include Guam, The Cayman Islands, and Mali, because no one actually knows where they are. You can take off your disguise at this point.

Step 5. Change your name to something really awesome. Think of your favorite character from a vampire novel or watch a bunch of sci-fi movies if you need ideas. Names like “Case,” “Cipher,” or “Ender” are good if you’re a guy. “Trinity,” “Razor,” and “Ghost” are good if you’re a girl.

Step 6. Get ID. And I am in no way endorsing identity theft – just a clever way to disguise yourself. Write a letter to yourself with your new name and mail it. Bring the letter in to the public library as proof of address and have them issue you a library card. Then take your library card and your letter to some local fitness club or something and get a membership ID. Use these IDs to get a picture ID somewhere else. Of course, you can just use your social security number and real name for work and stuff if absolutely necessary, but having a picture ID in your new name may come in handy. Of course, it may be easier just to change you name, but then it will be on public record, which might turn out to be a mess later. If I were you, I’d just stick to stuff that never requires you to give out your social. Like Internet business!

Step 6. Reappear several years later and freak people out. Run into them and then claim you have no idea who they are. It will have been enough time for you to look a little different, and there are dopplegangers out there anyway. This is the fun part.

The beauty of faking your death is that no one is callous enough to call you out on it. No one’s a big enough jerk to question your gruesome demise when everyone else is in the throes of mourning:

Friend #1: “Did you hear that Shane died in a fiery car crash?”

Friend #2: “Did they find a body? Did the DNA match?”

Not a chance! Which is another reason faking your death is an indisputable remedy to almost anything. Furthermore, who doesn’t secretly want to see what people would really say at their funeral?

Here’s the thing, though. Now when I do die, how are you going to know I’m really dead? Think about it…

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