Tag Archives: death

What would Miss Manners say?

4 Oct

October 4, 2012

I was faced with an etiquette dilemma yesterday. Etiquette is an interesting subject. There are rules for every situation. Which fork do I eat my salad with? How long do I wait before writing a thank you note? Should I tell my date she has food stuck in her teeth? Stuff like that. Not that I really care. These are the stupid rules that I don’t live by. Which fork do I eat my salad with? Whichever is in my hand. How long do I wait before I write a thank you note? I dunno, never wrote one. I said “thank you” at the time the event I was thanking them for occurred. Should I tell my date she has food stuck in her teeth? Not if I want her to put out.

But I do have to admit that once in a while I am faced with some social situation that I wish there was a handbook for. For example, I think there was a dead man in the men’s room yesterday.

At times like this I wish Mr. Know-It-All was still around because this is right up his alley.

Let me say a (mercifully very) few words about my bathroom philosophy. In a nutshell, I am all business. I don’t talk or socialize, I don’t conduct business, I go in and do what I am there to do and leave as soon as possible. OK, maybe I’ll send a text while I’m siting there but who hasn’t done that? There is nothing enticing to me about the men’s room. I will therefore avoid anything less than clinical in this description. 

I went into the men’s room at The Company I Am employed by and was immediately struck, almost physically struck, by the smell. It was a stench the likes of which can only be found in Satan’s can of air freshener. In normal situations I’d turn around and use the facilities on another floor, but in this case I really had no choice. Not if I wanted to retain my dignity. So I went in and rushed to the urinal and yada yada yada the stink only got worse the longer I stayed there. So I rushed over to the sink (no matter how diabolical the odor I still wash my hands and you better too!) and as I was washing I looked in the mirror and had a view of the closed stalls behind me.

I thought I was alone. There was not a single sound, other than those I made, the whole time I was in there yet the mirror showed me the feet of a man in the stall. Nothing remarkable about the shoes. They were the average shoes you’d see on a businessman, and I am not enough of a lavatory detective to identify a man from his shoes in the bottom of the bathroom stall, nor do I care to be.

But they didn’t move.

The stink was only getting worse yet whatever was causing it was doing so soundlessly. The man in the stall seemed to be totally motionless. And the stink in the men’s room could only be caused by the rotting dead.  Either that or it was the stench that killed the guy and I wasn’t sticking around to find out.

I hurried out and went back to my desk.

What should I have done?

A- Ask the guy in the stall if he is OK.
This makes no sense. If he is fine then it will do no good to embarrass the guy by pointing out that he stinks like road kill. If he is sick then I sure don’t want to catch the evil effluence that he has. And if he is dead then the question is moot.

B- Inform someone that there is a dead man in the men’s room.
If I am wrong then all I have done is embarrass myself, not to mention the guy in the stall when security arrives to investigate.  And if he is dead then my filling out forms and spending time telling various authorities about how I found the corpse on the toilet will not do him any good, let alone me.

C- Do nothing and pretend you were never there.

C. I did C.

I never did find out if the guy was dead, but when I went back at the end of the day the bathroom had been sanitized to within an inch of its life.

 

For another men’s room etiquette issue, click here.

You know another guy who doesn’t follow social conventions? Larry David. Here is one of my favorite bits.

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The Legend of The Headless Taxi Driver

30 Aug

August 30, 2012

This is a true story.

For Saarah (who hated it.)

Gather around my children, and listen. Draw in close; this is a fine night for a ghost story. It is dark and stormy, and- that sound! No my children, don’t startle so easily, it is only thunder. I can see quite well in the flashes of lightning, it is only us here. Please, move in, tighten the circle. There is strength in numbers when you are in the dark.

This tale happened quite recently. Saarah and I had left the theater very late. The show ended hours after midnight and we walked through the still night, past the empty and vacant lots where the trees cast odd shadows in the lamplight. The late evening, soon to be early morning, was still and quiet. It was a summer night, silent and stark under the glow of the full moon above. Our car was parked down the block from the theater, below a single dull light, a short walk really. We walked down the street lost in our conversation, sparing not a single glance at the odd shapes of the tombstones and crypts to our left, and as we neared… why the shiver, my child? Why the fright?

Did I neglect to mention the graveyard?

Yes, this theater was located directly across the street from a cemetery. As we laughed and thrilled to the show on the screen, the dead lay in the darkness not thirty feet away. And as we walked alongside the necropolis, there was a hush. Our talk quieted and our laughter died. On such a black evening, the dead do not care for the laughter of the living. And although we made it to the car without encountering a single charnel specter, I was later given reason to wonder if we had really not disturbed some ephemeral presence. Perhaps we laughed too loudly. Perhaps we did not show the proper respect. I’ve never been sure……

We drove home, shaking off the chill of the graveyard with music and talk. The streets were quiet and other drivers scarce.  We had all but forgotten the shivering touch of the dead when a vehicle ahead of us drew our attention. It was a taxi, a typical yellow New York taxi, much as hundreds or thousands of others appear. But taxi cabs are not that common a site in Brooklyn. The big fares are in Manhattan. But that alone was not enough to draw out attention, because as we drew near, we saw that the driver, the driver of the taxi, sitting alone in the automobile, all alone with no passenger, was- but I am getting ahead of myself.

The taxi was not far in front of us. As we watched we saw that it was not stopping where it should. While it stopped at the red lights, it would stop midway into the intersection. The car seemed to dare the other traffic. It positioned itself so that it seemed to invite, no children, it seemed to dare Death himself to take the driver in his embrace.

Did you see that? In the flash of lightning, did none of you see that? Just beyond the trees? No, none of you? Perhaps the eaves of an old house, or maybe just this old storyteller’s imagination. Of course you could not see it, the lightning was behind you. But now all seems dark and quiet again.

We drew close to the car. It was not driving as it should at all. It drifted from one lane of travel to another. It crowded the rare car that came too close. It slowed in oncoming traffic and stopped in the center, the dead center, of intersections. We were keeping a respectable distance from this dangerous car, for at first we suspected that it was driven by a drunk, but we quickly noticed something that was not right. I softly pressed the accelerator and we inched closer. We followed, getting inch by inch closer, slowly gaining a better view of the interior.

We spoke not a word. But we knew each other’s thoughts. And one close glance at the car ahead and another in each other’s eyes confirmed that we had not left behind the specters and haunts of the graveyard, that we had not escaped the notice of the undead evils of the tomb. For when we drove close enough, and when the moonlight lit up the driver’s seat, we saw the truth and forever longer shall we wonder when we will next encounter the otherwise normal-looking car and its unearthly driver.

For what Saarah and I saw in the dark, just as we now sit in the same darkness, alone now as we were then, and I ask you children to draw close, press in very close my children, for I can only whisper this blasphemy, and pray I no further disturb the unliving…

When we pulled close to the car which invited Death, we saw that the driver…… the driver of the taxi…. had no head.

But wait! Again, the lightning! I see it! Do you? Look, you can see it! You can hear it! No, don’t wait for me, I am doomed! He has come to take me! The Headless Driver has come! Saarah, oh Saarah, I pray you are not next! He nears! He nears! Run my children! RUN! For I am doomed! Doomed!

.

.

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Police records indicate that the camp counselor was found three days after being reported missing by camp officials. A search of the woods later turned up his body.

It had no head.

Rumors of a headless taxi driver have been reported during each full moon for the past decade but few dare to drive close enough to be sure.

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