A lot of the aging process involves coping with the deaths of friends. The death of a spouse seems particularly bad. In my limited experience, men are worse at it than women.

I used to see a couple who would fight like crazy. She would say some downright nasty things about doctors, nurses, the checkout clerk at Big Y, her neighbor’s children and even the CVS pharmacist. (I mean, really? How can anyone be mad at a pharmacist?) She would criticize her husband in front of me, as if to enlist my support, because he ate too many Oreos, didn’t wash his old car, and had erectile dysfunction. For his part, he’d snicker and fire off sarcastic retorts. Their visits were always tense and unpleasant.

But when she died, he seemed like a lost old man. He cried when he talked about how much he missed her, how much he loved her and how he felt so alone. I felt genuinely sad for him, but when he said that “she was the kindest, sweetest person who never said a bad thing about anyone,” I had to physically restrain myself from looking incredulous. It took every last drop of energy not to laugh. He was absolutely serious.

My brother knew an older woman who lost her husband of many years. She was sad, of course, and after a few months, she went out and bought a Barcalounger. She showed it off and said she’d always wanted one, but her husband wouldn’t let her get one.

“Well, since it’s only me now, I guess I can do whatever I want,” she said.

It’s as if women are better able to handle it, or maybe they are made of stronger stuff inside. Older men who are widowers seem to get sicker quicker when their wives die first. Older women seem better able to bounce back, to rub their hands together and look at what else they need to do in their lives. I have no scientific proof of this, but in my limited experience, older widowed women seem far more interested in dating than do older widowed men, a strange gender role reversal of the way things were — at least for me during adolescence.

Maybe I’m just projecting, of course, because I absolutely, positively do not want to die after my wife, Carla. I’m pretty sure I’d turn into some broken skeleton of a man, unhappy, lonely and grumpy if my wife isn’t there to talk to, eat with or yell at me for not wiping away the green ring that forms on the charger for my electric toothbrush. But, while men typically die first, the odds are less in my favor because Carla, even though she looks like a young hottie, is still two years older than I; statistically the odds are about even that she will die before me, which is totally unacceptable.

And so, my plan is simple. I marry a younger wife who’s statistically more likely to die after me. I’d get genetic testing and have her get a full medical exam to make sure she doesn’t have some drastic illness or cancer that would just kill her in her prime. And since I really love my wife, I’d want the new wife to have all the qualities that Carla does, so Carla would have to train her for, say, five to 10 years. She can live with us while I’m still married to Carla, and then when Carla starts to get old, we’d divorce and I’d marry the young wife who will be, essentially, just like Carla.

I proposed this to Carla the other night on her way to Home Depot. She said she’d look around when she went shopping — a great thing, I thought, because women in Home Depot usually are healthy and strong. But then she said, “But don’t forget that it’ll have to be one who won’t mind living on rice and beans because you’re gonna have to pay my finder’s fee.”