Month: May 2020

The Nominees Are …

A great deal has been written about the “Liberate [whereveritis]” protests that have been staged in a number of state capitals recently, but there are two words missing from everything I have seen with respect to this phenomenon: “Darwin Award”. More specifically, I’d like to suggest to those participants in these gatherings who cluster together without regard for social distancing recommendations and without wearing protective facemasks of any kind that, while this behavior might certainly wind up earning them nominations for this year’s Darwin Award, this in itself might not be enough to advance them beyond nominations.

Remembering that the point of the Darwin Award is to recognize the sacrifices of those who have chosen to improve the human gene pool by removing their own stupid genes from it, one should keep in mind that a nominee could actually harm his or her chance of advancing if he or she thoughtlessly damages the gene pool by removing from it the genes of other people (such as medical personnel or first responders) who are more intelligent than him/her. With that in mind I would suggest that any of the protest participants who are serious about advancing past the nomination stage should, if they become symptomatic, avoid calling 911 or visiting emergency rooms, and instead follow the advice of their Dear Leader, and chug a couple of bottles of Lysol.

I am not one of the judges for the awards, but I would think that this degree of dedication would almost guarantee finalist status for anyone willing to make the sacrifice. Given our species’ marvelous creativity in identifying spectacularly stupid ways to kill ourselves, I don’t think it’s possible to guarantee anyone’s success. Nevertheless, anyone who chooses to advance the species in this way will have earned my thanks, especially if he or she does so before this year’s election.

This Really Did Happen

I should perhaps add the phrase “to the best of my knowledge and belief” to the title of this post, since I was not directly involved in the incident which I will describe below, and it was not described to me by anyone who was directly involved. However, I was told about this by a person who knew both me and the person involved, the person who related this story to me had no reason to make it up, and it is not at all hard for me to believe that the perpetrator person involved actually did this, given his somewhat offbeat sense of humor. I’ll identify him only by his first name, Theron.

Before describing the incident, I need to add that, in addition to having an ideosyncratic sense of humor, Theron was slender to the point of being skinny, had dark hair and a pale complexion, and in general looked a bit like he might have died recently, after a long struggle with some wasting disease. It’s easy to imagine his being cast in a vampire movie.

With that out of the way, I will explain that the event I’m about to describe resulted from the intersection of two different needs. First, there are always needy college students who need to find ways to save money. Second, because people have an inconvenient habit of dying at all hours of the day and night, rather than only within normal business hours, funeral homes find it necessary to make arrangements to have their phones answered 24 hours every day. In an arrangement that I suspect is not unique, one funeral home in Lawrence, Kansas met both needs by having a small apartment on premises, and making this available rent free to a college student, in return for that student’s promising to be available at specified hours to answer the business’ phone. This is where Theron came in, as the student in this arrangemtnt.

As I mentioned above, Theron had a somewhat offbeat sense of humor, and this got the better of him one night. He knew that a body was to be brought in at a particular time, and a few minutes prior to this time he lay down on the slab and pulled the sheet up over himself. When, shortly thereafter, the two individuals escorting the body wheeled the gurney into the room, they found the slab already occuopied. One said to the other”Oh, they already have a body; what are we going to do?” At this point Theron very slowly sat up, while slowly saying “I’d … be … happy … to move.” Two people then very quickly left the room, only to return shortly thereafter and explain to Theron, in forceful terms, that if he ever did that again he would need the slab. I have to assume, since he lived to tell this story to the person who related it to me, that he was able to restrain himself enough not to tempt fate by trying this again.