How To Not Kill Yourself (in 12 simple steps)

In order to not kill yourself you will need:
         1 shotgun
         1 wheelchair
         1 or more neighbours with whom you are on good terms

1)     Put the barrel of the shotgun into your mouth. For the purpose of not killing yourself, you’ll want to be looking at a good quality, mid-price range shotgun. If in doubt, we believe that you can never go wrong with a 12 gauge, smooth barrel that fires regular bird shot.

2)     Clamp your teeth down on the barrel - not so hard that it hurts, but just enough so that you think you have it secured into position. It needs to be in far enough so that the muzzle is in past your teeth, but not so far down your throat that it blocks your airway - you don’t want to choke. Your head should still be able to oscillate freely.

3)     You should, at this point, be in your wheelchair. Having lost the use of your legs in a driving accident 18 months ago, you should have been in your wheelchair for a good long time now.

4)     Gently rest your thumb on the trigger. As you are pointing the gun on yourself you will be unable to use the traditional forefinger to fire the weapon, and so you will need to use your thumb instead, pushing the trigger away from you rather than pulling it in.

5)    Your friend had been driving. He had lied to you about how much he had had to drink that night and you, having had quite the skinful yourself, were in no position to pass or make judgment. You just wanted to get home.

6)    You fell asleep in the car and so don’t remember the crash. In fact, when you woke up three days later in the ICU the last thing you can remember is being at a party. You were at a party, you were talking, and drinking, and having a good time and now you can’t move your legs.

7)     It is imperative that you DO NOT attempt to saw off any portion of the barrel at any time. It may occur to you, as you struggle with Step 4, that it would be much easier to gain greater purchase on the trigger if you customised the weapon somehow, say by sawing the barrel length. There are a number of reason why a person may decide to do this - to increase the weapon’s manoeuvrability, to ease storage capabilities or to widen the scatter effect of the shot - but for your purposes, for the purpose of not killing yourself, this will only cause a hinderance. In fact, if you are to have any hope of surviving this, you are going to need the barrel to be as long as it possibly can.
If, during the execution of these instructions, this or any similar thought dawns on you then you must cast it from your mind immediately.

8)     If it’s any consolation your friend, the driver, died. So often you hear of these stories of intoxicated idiots taking a seat behind the wheel of their car, or van, or truck and causing these epic, pyrotechnic crashes only to emerge from the smouldering wreckage largely unscathed. They, the drivers, end up with nothing worse than a broken collarbone, some token custodial sentence and a lifelong driving ban, while scores of innocent passengers and pedestrians are irreparably maimed and killed. A doctor driving home from a late-night emergency call gets smashed into by a driver so blind drunk he can’t tell the difference between red and green. A distraught eight year old looking for her lost dog in the fields at the back of her house ends up knocked down by somw unexpected bonnet bursting through a hedge because the driver in charge of the car swerved violently off the road to avoid a binbag.
And then these people, they step from their totalled vehicles, survey the damage that they have caused and then they take out their phones and they call the emergency services - not because they’re noble but because they’re that fucking drunk.
These people, they’ll tell you that it’s just as bad as being dead, that it’s worse having to survive and to live with the guilt that comes from paralysing your friend, but there must also be a part of them, however small, that feels invincible, that feels strong and lucky to be alive.

9)     Is your thumb in position? In your seated state you’re probably finding this part quite difficult. What you’ll probably need to do at this stage is to twist the trunk of your body (clockwise if you’re using your right thumb; counter-clockwise if you’re using your left). In doing so you should find that your leading shoulder will drop down, significantly extending your reach. For added comfort, you will find that turning your head to whichever side feels natural (again depending on whether you are right or left-handed) will relieve any unnecessary muscular tension.
You should notice that when your thumb finally does make some solid contact with the trigger that the barrel of the shotgun is still pointing straight up towards the ceiling while the top of your skull is now pointing towards one of the room’s four walls.

10)    Imagine if he’d survived. There’s not long left, so just think about it quickly. Imagine if he’d survived. What would you have done?

11)    Take a deep breath.

12)    With whatever force you have in this uncomfortable and unnatural position, thrust you thumb down against the trigger. The shotgun fire should rip through the enamel and flesh of your cheek, missing any of the vital areas of your head, neck and spine. The force of it will knock you back in your chair and leave you unconscious.

Do not worry about calling an ambulance. The noise should alert a neighbours who will, no doubt, call one for you.