Takers of Last Resort

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© 2003 R.C. Barajas

his wobbling step over the mortal line and into responsible adulthood has been long in coming. Unexpectedly, in setting up our Last Will and Testament and Durable General Power of Attorney, I am overcome not with the depression I feared would smother me while reflecting on my inevitable demise, but by a profound ennui. I imagined I would indulge in days of morbid daydreaming when I finally unsheathed the contents of the envelope that had been gathering dust and dog hair for the last many months. But here I sit, fighting to keep my mind on the task at hand, while wondering why my education has not prepared me to read and understand a mere 40 typed pages. Granted, in those pages are such gassy sentences as these:

"If my agent determines that using certain assets in a particular manner might discharge the agent's own legal obligation, then my agent shall be deemed to be an interested agent. The interested agent shall not have authority to use assets in the contemplated manner unless a special agent independently approves the proposed use. Successor agents named in this power of attorney may serve as special agent for such purposes."
I am suddenly imagining Maxwell Smart and a rather smarmy James Bond wheeling and dealing in my affairs under the cone of silence.

"Definitions. The use of the singular shall include the plural; the plural, the singular: the use of any gender shall include all genders: and the term agent shall include duly appointed substitutes and successors."
That's not what they taught us in French class...

"To make, execute, acknowledge, and deliver a good and sufficient deed or deeds of conveyance, or other instrument or instruments, necessary to effect such sales, conveyances, or agreements."
I am being borne on a plinth through the town, playing the pipes, and selling cheap knick-knacks for tourists.

It becomes obvious I need a cup of coffee - or a shot of something that burns as it goes down.

As I read on, flipping the pages when I tire of the arrangement of the text -rather than when I actually understand the content- it begins to dawn on me that the saving grace of legalese is that it declaws the Awful. There are monstrous things out there, but because of the antiseptic, cauterizing nature of this language, the unthinkable is cotton-wooled inside phrasing so opaque it obscures all emotion. There are sentences so long they defy the understanding of even the most dogged reader. These endless run-ons begin a long-winded embalming of deceased loved ones until the dead are no more tear-jerking than an addendum on the definitions page.

continued...