EARTH – An estimated 150,000 people are presumed to have died yesterday in the wake of what experts described as “a fairly typical day” on the planet.
If confirmed, the expected number of fatalities during the latest in a string of typical days would raise the death toll since the dawn of human existence to approximately 108 billion.
Experts also noted that the typical day’s lethality was relatively normal, unmarked by any major life-extinguishing events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, or airplane crashes.
Right: The scene of yesterday’s carnage.
Instead – at least if the past is any indicator – the most common cause of turned-up toes during the typical day was heart disease, which likely sent roughly 19,000 souls to the great beyond, followed by stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases, which routinely prompt the kicking of approximately 16,000 buckets daily.
Others cashing in their chips en masse during the typical day most probably included victims of lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS, cancer, tuberculosis, and diabetes. It is also assumed that some 3,000 travelers reached their final destination in totally typical road accidents during the course of the planet’s 24-hour rotation.
Other common scenarios cited by farm-buying experts for those biting the dust during the typical day included murders, suicides, falls (primarily in the bathtub), drownings, electrocutions, accidental poisonings, drug overdoses, and decapitations by various whirring devices.
No mass memorial event is planned for the typical day’s victims, nor was their passing the subject of any significant news coverage, aside from a few who apparently achieved something during their lifetimes that the media considered noteworthy.
Estimates of the number of those injured during the typical day were not yet available, but it is expected that upwards of tens of millions sustained a variety of wounds ranging from paper cuts to muscle sprains to having their limbs blown off by exploding mines.
One bright spot among all of the typical croaking was the collective sigh of relief that approximately seven billion of the Earth’s inhabitants were able to breathe over the fact that their number did not come up during the typical day and that they have at least some time remaining before answering the final summons and assuming room temperature.
Finally, in a related story, an estimated 220,000 new human beings were born during the typical day, thus tragically setting the stage – barring any medical breakthrough in longevity – for a nearly equivalent number of deaths sometime within the next century.
Fun Facts to Know and Tell: Based on a typical rate of 100 MMPM (maker-meeters per minute), roughly 350 dust-biters breathed their last during the time it took an average person to read this article. Oh the humanity.
Won’t you join me in lighting 150,000 candles?
Of course that might up the death toll to 150,002.