Who gets to live? The definitive list.

So, there I was, just looking through the paper, checking the obits and the shootings and the stabbings, just to make sure I wasn't dead or shot or stabbed, when I saw it.

It was a story about what would happen if a Terrible Pandemic (Black Plague, Chicken Fever, the Cooties) hit the world, and they only had so many shots to give people, who would be spared? And who would be left to die?

Well, this is the dilemma facing the world if some terrible flu takes off making millions sick, and it would get down to the problem of whom would we save, and who would be left to rot away. So this is what our leaders did to look into this problem: They appointed a committee.

Of course.

Anyway, they picked a committee to decide who lives and who dies. On that committee are:

1. Doctors from prestigious universities.

2. Representatives from government agencies.

These are the people who will decide if you live or die. How safe do you feel now?

And they've already made some decisions. Included on the list of people who will probably be allowed to just die are old people, sick people and people who can't take care of themselves.

According to the "Who Should Live and Who Should Die Committee," we can easily lose those old or sick people and not worry about it.

They didn't even mention the crooks and killers and dopers and gang members who probably will get to live because we don't want to lose those valuable, important people.

But I still have a question: Who is not on the list, but should be?

Because of my Outstanding Knowledge of Humanity, I would like to make a few suggestions of the people we could let die when the next pandemic hits:

»That idiot we saw driving on 47th Avenue, who had two phones, and was talking in one while texting with the other, WHILE DRIVING HIS CAR.

»The guy who wrote me a letter last week and called me a Complete Moron. At least I'm complete.

»The woman in that TV commercial where she blocks the guy from pushing the button on the elevator. I hate that woman. Also, you can include the people who wrote that annoying commercial.

»Democrats who want to control our lives.

»Republicans who have all the answers.

»The guy who owns the barking dog in our neighborhood. He apparently can't hear the dog when he lets him outside every morning at 4 o'clock and the dog barks nonstop for ... oh, about 15 days.

»People who block the aisles with their shopping carts.

»The Greeley traffic light coordinator.

»Oil company executives.

»Tree huggers.

»Those stupid guys in beer commercials, who embarrass men everywhere.

»Zeke N.

»That woodpecker that keeps hammering away in our tree, hour after hour, day after day ...

»And, last on the list of People Who Don't Get To Live are two of the most important groups:

1. Doctors from prestigious universities.

2. Representatives from government agencies.

The name Gnarly Trombone was taken from an 1871 Cincinnati newspaper that misread Horace Greeley's handwritten name of the Greeley Tribune. Mike Peters is a Tribune staff writer. He may be e-mailed at mpeters@greeleytribune.com.