I used to follow an online blog back before they were trendy. The person who wrote them really inspired me back in High School. He's the reason why I like the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" and part of the final injection of sarcasm that would turn me into the chippy-shouldered bitterman I am.

This is one of his earliest blog entries, stolen word for word. Do not PM me for stupid typos. As a bit of background, his name is Scott Fitzsimmons from Perth. He was a link from losers.org where he was given the title "Mr. Yappy" due to his all text website. Unfortunately, he grew to hate his past work and discarded it all. Fortunately, there's a site called the Internet Archive where you can find old sites even if they have been taken down (useful in blackmail). Unfortunately, it doesn't completely compile his rantings. Anyway, I'm done ranting. Fortunately.

I've often thought about the logistics of being buried alive. This isn't because I have a morbid fascination with death (being the wacky atheistic heathen that I am, I believe there isn't anything after death, so I'm doing my damndest not to die), but because I like logistics. I look at mathematics and see lines. I look at art and see circles. Anyhoow, I digress. The question that's been bothering me is this: if you were buried alive, what would be the cause of death? Assuming that you can't possibly escape (which is a reasonable assumption, being buried under 2 metres of dirt), you'd know you're going to die. Would the terrible reality of the situation kill you then and there? That would happen after about 3 seconds. But let's say for the moment the shock dosn't kill you. You see people in the movies who slowly run out of air. This normally happens after a couple of minutes. Now, I'm no biologist, or physicist, or any sort of ist, but it seems to me just because you're underground dosn't mean that you're not getting any oxygen. Fact it, undertakers don't exactly seal coffins watertight, do they? There's plenty of gaps around the hinges for air to practically burst in.

So you don't die of shock, and you can still breathe. It seems to me that the problem then is lack of water. Estimated time of death - 2 days. Now, remember, there are gaps in your coffin for small things to fall in. 2 metres underground, you've got a lot of moist dirt around you. So the solution is simple - suck the moisture out of falling dirt. That means there's enough water to survive on, though your throat might be a little parched. Food is the next problem. This one will kill you in about 7 days. But this is an easy problem to solve. In dirt, there's worms. Worms are made of meat. Eat the worms. Not exactly nutrient packed, but it will do.

You must be asking yourself, 'What then, Scott, would be the cause of death?'. You might be thinking at this point that there's a huge number of people buried under the ground surviving by eating slugs and sucking dirt. But, sadly, no matter how much dirt you drink, and how many insects you digest, death is still inevitable. Because life has unfortunate by-products. Most of you wouldn't think how much waste comes out of you every day, but it's a fair bit. To imagine living in a coffin, think of this. Go to your toilet, sit down, and seal the door. For the less astute readers who haven't worked out what the cause of death would be, I'll tell you - drowning in a pool of your own urine. You'd eke out a sad existence, living day by day on whatever meat falls through the cracks, slowly watching your bodily waste fill up the coffin. First it reaches your ankles. Then it reaches your ears. Eventually, it reaches the mouth. You think about drinking it, but you realise it would only return with reinforcements. Your lungs would fill, you'd slowly stop breathing. Death would only take a couple of minutes.

What's the moral of the story? If you're buried alive, don't drink the sand.