For some reason I was looking at longevity and came across Jeanne Calment at wiki. The part that made me smile was in 1965, she made a sort of reverse payment to sell her apartment to a lawyer (she was 90 at the time). He agreed to pay her 2,500 francs a month until she died. She lived until she was 122 and he paid her twice the value of the unit. Not that he cared-he was dead and his widow was paying it.
I also liked how she smoked until she was 117 and only gave up due to her being unable to see the cigarettes clearly.
I’ve always found that story amusing myself, though then I feel bad for the poor lawyer.
I think that maybe we find stories like this funny because it’s kind of tasteless to be betting on someone dying sooner rather then later? Though I do think that it’s a good safety net for some people late in life, so in the long run I’m glad they exist.
(Reported this thread, by the way, since you don’t seem to have a question, so I suspect you put this in the wrong forum.)
