Have you ever had a morning when you woke up and thought to yourself, "Wait! Am I dead?"

Sure. We all have.

It's only natural in those first painful seconds of dull consciousness to wonder if you actually made it through the night or if you've finally gotten what everyone says you so richly deserve.

But how to tell? In the dim-witted world of the newly-wakened, the answer is less obvious than it may seem. Here are a few observations that might make it easier to decide if it's worth trying to get up and dress yourself.

Paradoxical as it may seem, if you wake up feeling (or smelling) really bad, you're probably still with us. Once your corpus is defuncti, all those aches and pains will simply melt away. And a spiritual being of pure energy is certainly not going to smell like that.

Try poking something. Your eye, maybe. If you have a sore shoulder or bum elbow, lucky you. Bend it the wrong way. Pain is nature's way of telling you you have to get up and go to work today.

Now stare into a dark corner of the room. No, I mean right now. It's not perfectly black, is it? See all that noise and junk and little phosphor dots? That's white noise coming off the imperfect machinery you use to perceive visual information — which is to say your eyeballs and visual cortex and stuff. You're only human. For now.

When your time has come at last, it'll be like going from rabbit ears to digital cable, HDTV and surround sound. The blacks will be black, the whites will be white. No more floaters. And that infernal hissing sound will be gone from your audio-track, too. Hooray for the multimedia quality of the afterlife!

Okay, finally, now that your eyes are open. Is there anybody at the foot of the bed? Yes?

If it's your partner, try asking point blank, "honey, am I dead?" If he or she can hear you at all, you're probably not. Or else you two went through with that murder-suicide thing last night. And succeeded, too. Good for you!

If it's, say, Jesus himself, I wouldn't read too much into it yet. The CEO's of major religions don't usually pickup and deliver in person. Perhaps it's only a psychotic break. Have you been spending a lot of time lately worrying about the diabolical way the Pope and the CIA have combined forces to ruin you? (What do you mean, how do I know? Your television told me).

If there's a sexually attractive stranger in the room, you're either still asleep, or you've cleverly managed to join one of the earthier religions before passing away in the night. Generally speaking, religions which promise hanky panky in the afterlife require you to die in battle before you can collect. Is the hilt of anything sticking out of your chest?

Finally, if Grandma is standing beside you, and she's cradling Mister Mittens in her arms, you are so utterly and completely screwed. Might as well doze a while longer. You're in no hurry this morning.

Of course, all this presupposes some continuation of consciousness after death. I'm not sure of this one. Not at all. Personally, I've arranged to have my own brain, the locus weasela, dropped in a jar of formadehyde. Before or after I go; it doesn't much matter to me. That's how I plan to spend the long haul: bobbing contentedly on a shelf somewhere between the two-headed baby and the jar of pickled eggs. Plenty of room if you're interested.

No? Then I hope this checklist comes in handy for you some day. If not, please don't write me.

That's all I need. Email from cranky dead people.