I’ve been having these sudden attacks lately. One minute, I’m just sitting around, and the next, I could swear I was a 370-pound, Jewish woman stirring a giant, boiling vat of matzah-ball soup in her 1940s kitchen while yelling at her allergy-ridden son Mervin for spending too much time in the bathroom.

The attacks weren’t annoying at first, but my roommate got sick of me badgering him to marry a nice Jewish girl with money in her family, so I went to a shrink.

“It might have something to do with reincarnation,” the doc says.

“You mean I was once the size of Massachusetts, Jewish, and female, and then I died and my soul was born again in this body,” I said, quite shocked, as you might imagine.

“Well,” he said, “it’s either a past-life experience, or perhaps you’re just a woman trapped inside a man’s body. Tell me, have you ever considered a sex-change operation before?”

I was feeling quite disoriented, as again, you might imagine, so I just went to work and stared at my ketchup.

I have this impressively huge pile of little ketchup packets on my desk here. It’s been building up slowly over the last few months thanks to daily trips to area fast food joints (don’t you just love that word—so many different uses, I mean). What with my job, my busy schedule, all that fan mail I get, and the Lakers still trying to sign me, I don’t have much time for the proverbial “home-cooked meal.”

Anyway, there’s this impressively huge pile of ketchup, and it mostly just sits. Many days I find myself staring at it, contemplating it, wondering what in the hell I’m ever going to need this much ketchup for. People ask me, “Dan, why such an impressively huge pile of ketchup?”

Well, since I’m not even sure myself, I usually blow off the question by telling them about that ancient belief concerning the size of a man’s ketchup pile in relation to the size of his—well, you know the rest.

So, I sit here and admire my ketchup pile, and then it hits me. What if, by chance, I happen to live forever. I just may need all of this ketchup.

OK, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “Dan, don’t be a melonhead. You’re going to die someday. Everybody dies.”

Well, maybe. I mean, that’s what we’ve always been told. But, what if it’s just that the vast majority of people throughout the history of the universe have been just a little bit unlucky. Wait a minute, just put a hold on that straight jacket and let me explain a little further.

I’ve heard a lot of stories about people dying and I’ve even seen dead people. But, it’s never happened to me before. I’m sorry, but it’s hard to make me believe in something if I haven’t experienced it myself. I guess I just lead a very serious, logic-based life.

I’ve heard a lot about UFOs, but until two beautiful women fly down here and say, “Venus needs balding, English major, newspaper columnist with low GPA,” I’m going to go on believing UFOs only come to visit people with a history of incest and chewing tobacco in their families.

So, for right now I think I’ll just blow off that old death myth and take it for granted that I’m going to live forever. Sure, if it happens to me, I’ll believe it, but until then I’m just going to sit here and keep ordering French fries.