American Consequences - September 2018

IT’S A LIFE LESSON

I looked death in the face. All right, I didn't. I glimpsed him from behind. Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer – of a highly treatable kind. I was told I had a 95% chance of survival. Which means that, as a drinking, smoking, saturated-fat-hound, exercise-free 60-year-old male – my chance of survival was actually improved by cancer. Also, while cancer isn’t usually ridiculous, I

had, of all things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet do you wear for that? And where do you wear it? And what’s the fund-raising slogan? Maybe that slogan could be sewn in needlepoint on my embarrassing doughnut rear-end pillow. To add insult to illness, I’m a logical, sensible libertarian-conservative, and my diagnosis came just weeks after Teddy Kennedy’s. That he had cancer of the brain, while I had cancer

By P.J. O'Rourke

62 September 2018

Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog