A Thousand Ways to DIE in Antarctica... Here are Five

Doug is upset with me. His brother called today to inform us that he is going to Antarctica. Doug immediately gasped, said, “I’m so jealous!” and gave me the dirtiest look he could manage. I shrank into the couch and pretended to be very interested in my toenails.

Why am I getting dirty looks, you ask? Well, Doug has wanted to go to Antarctica for as long as I have known him. However, sometimes being married crushes lifelong dreams - I refuse to allow him to go. He reminds me of it every now and again in a sulky voice, especially when he finds out one of his relatives is getting to go.

There is a very logical reason for my refusal. First of all, an expedition is a six-month engagement, and I don’t like long absences from my husband. He has suggested the remedy to this by telling me I could go with him, which is preposterous. This is how I envision myself in Antarctica:



I don’t know why he wants to go to such a frigid wasteland. I mean, the absence could be prolonged FOREVER because of all the ways one could perish. So far I have counted 178 ways to die in Antarctica, but I will choose my top five to post here.



1) Getting eaten by rabid polar bears.



Yes, I know there are no polar bears in Antarctica… YET. Hey, the polar ice caps are melting – they’ve gotta go somewhere. The way I figure it, they will either swim there or, the more likely scenario, environmentalists will organize a mission to take them there by boat. They will take sled dogs to haul the bears once they have been humanely tranquilized, but due to the unforeseen circumstance of one of the dogs being a former rescue from a laboratory wherein they researched the effects of an angry virus on monkeys, that dog will have been infected with a serious type of rabies and will go around biting the polar bears and they will put the dog down but feel too bad about the bears because they were trying to save them and shooting them would defeat the purpose so they just ship them as planned and drop them off on Antarctica to fend for themselves. Hey, there are lots of penguins and seals to eat, right? They’ll be fine.



2) Getting eaten by rabid penguins.



They got rabies from the polar bears. It’s the bad kind that birds can also get and it gives them sharp teeth and makes them ravenous for meat. HUMAN meat.



3) Freezing to death because you forgot one of the buttons on your jacket.



Wind is a sneaky bastard.



4) Dying in the ocean because your ship hits an iceberg.



Bummer, dude. Bet you wish you had stayed home with your wife.



5) Getting mistaken for Jonah by the Whale.



It’s Christmas at home. What did you get your family? What’s that? You mean you can’t get them anything BECAUSE YOU FREAKING DIED?! Guess you should have just stayed home, huh?