I know, I know — I should have been one of those women who held out for diamonds.

But disposing of sex paraphernalia — actually all those embarrassing items you have stashed around the house — is something every boomer should be concerned about. The days are dwindling down to a precious few and some of you have a nasty cough. Do you want the people clearing out your house, particularly your children, to find those feathery, metallic, rubbery, polymer blend items you ordered one drunken night a few months after you’d been forced to take early retirement? Do you want them to know their big, tough construction worker dad liked to dress up in heels and a boa and sing “La La La” from “No Strings,” one of Richard Rodgers’s weaker efforts?

You may be thinking, “What do I care what my friends or children find in the house? I will be beyond embarrassment, I will be dead.” But you are wrong. Doctors now know that the human sense of embarrassment can last up to two weeks after the heart stops beating. Consider this statement from a boomer named Stanley: “I was lying on the operating table, then I had a feeling of leaving my body and looking down at myself and all I could think was, ‘Is my gut really that big?’ ” Look it up on the web.

I know no one likes to think about death. But just as the responsible person designates someone to make medical decisions in case he or she is incapacitated, we should all have designated, let’s call them Eradicators, to come over and clean the house after we expire. Remember Marilyn Monroe. Not that I can prove anything, just saying. Your Eradicator should be given house keys, a list of items to be destroyed and their hiding places — you don’t want to be in intensive care screaming, “Back of the sock drawer!” They’ll just increase your meds.

The truly considerate person will dispose of potentially humiliating or harmful items the moment he gets really sick, like a married man I knew who gave his love letters from the other woman to a male friend before he went into the hospital. Then he got better and got the love letters back. Then he died, which was a big mistake on his part, though I hear it made for an interesting moment at the memorial when the widow spotted the other woman. Think of this as a cautionary tale. Horrible things can happen when you leave romantic mementos around the house.

There is no excuse, however, for careless or improper disposal, such as my friend Herb and I were witness to many years ago in Greenwich Village when we spied a sex toy in the street — not on the sidewalk, in the street. I’d tell you what it was but I am trying to stay within newspaper guidelines: O.K., think adult seesaw.