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I don't see enough dead people!

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  • I don't see enough dead people!

    I was home sick from the paper Tuesday and off Wednesday, but my coworkers just told me this and it was too funny to not post.

    We usually average somewhere between 12-15 obits a day (except Thursday, which is our busy day and usually lands at least 20). Of that number, we'll probably have about three pending notices, which are a notice that basically says "John Doe has died, full services announced later." Two lines, usually.

    Now, on Tuesday, we had one actual, full obit and two pending notices. That's it. That breaks the record for least deaths in a day. Now, I was glad to hear this because I hated to call in on Tuesday when there's a lot of work to be done, but with so few obits, the other clerk, J, was able to get everything done without having to rush.

    On Wednesday, however, the newsroom received a call from a very upset woman. Why was she upset? Was she a relative and there was an error? Did we not get a fax from her? Dear God, how did we mess up on three obits??

    No. She was upset because SHE DIDN'T BELIEVE WE REALLY HAD THAT FEW OBITS.

    Seriously. My boss R, and the editor, E, both told me about it. I thought it was just another case of an old lady calling to talk to us for no apparent reason (happens a lot), but E assured me that yes, the woman was ACTUALLY angry about it. She refused to believe that our area had only three deaths to make mention of in the paper, and thought that, for some reason, we must have been "hiding" some of the obituaries, or that there some other mischief I have no conception of afoot.

    So, yeah, that has to be the least rational thing to get angry over EVER. "Not enough people died!"

    Of course, my joke is "Well, I'm sorry, I was sick, I couldn't get out there and kill them all that day!"
    "Maybe the problem just went away...maybe it was the magical sniper fairy that comes and gives silenced hollow point rounds to people who don't eat their vegetables."

  • #2
    Geez lady, sorry that there weren't enough dead people to entertain you through your breakfast read.

    Seriously,if that is the worst thing that happens to her, she's one lucky woman.
    -"One ring to rule them all!"-Elias
    -Ask yourself, "WWRKHTSCCJ:TMD?"

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    • #3
      How sad... it's probably the high-light of her day to read the obits.

      You conspiracy-mongers!

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      • #4
        "Sorry about that. I'll kill double today's number for you tomorrow."
        "You are loved" - Plaidman.

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        • #5


          Holy oranges and biscuits.

          That woman has issues. I hope she gets the help she needs.
          Unseen but seeing
          oh dear, now they're masquerading as sane-KiaKat
          There isn't enough interpretive dance in the workplace these days-Irv
          3rd shift needs love, too
          RIP, mo bhrionglóid

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          • #6
            ghoul. stop shopping at dead people's houses.
            Everything sucks. I must be living in a vacuum.

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            • #7
              She sounds like an insane version of my Nana and Aunt JA, who read the obits daily looking for realitives and friends who died recently (its not that weird, my family is insanely large, and are directly responceable for the founding of my city) but i think they would be happy there where so few deathes.

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              • #8
                Sounds like you are going to have to escalate this call up to God.

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                • #9
                  Well, if there ever was a need to make more people dead, Mysty would be the person who could do it...
                  Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

                  "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

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                  • #10
                    Quoth BusBus View Post
                    Geez lady, sorry that there weren't enough dead people to entertain you through your breakfast read.
                    You forgot to put in "I'll make sure to go out tonight and do random drive-by's to make sure we hit our quota of death notices. How many people would you like me to kill for you Ma'am."

                    M
                    I never lost my faith in humanity. Can't lose what you never had right?

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                    • #11
                      I think that checking the obits thing is a generational thing. Back when my mom was little, when not everybody had a private phone (they had a party line at the general store, if I recall, until she was 5 or 6), people would place obit notices rather than contacting everyone directly, because it was easier, and papers tended to have wider circulation. My grandparents have always checked the obits, my mom has always checked them, and my aunts and uncles and family friends in my parents' generation have always checked them (my dad doesn't read the paper... I think it has too many big words and he reads really slowly). Me? personally? I can't think of anything LESS interesting to do than to scan the obits looking for people I know. Talk about morbid. Mom relishes her little whiff of death every morning. *shudder*
                      GK/Kara/Jester fangirl.

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                      • #12
                        Quoth MystyGlyttyr View Post
                        We usually average somewhere between 12-15 obits a day (except Thursday, which is our busy day and usually lands at least 20).
                        Well, shucks... it doesn't seem like anyone else is going to ask...

                        A spike on Thursday... is there something strange going on there Wednesdays?

                        Do the doctors all take off that day? Is that the day a local nuclear plants vents excess radioactivity? A "Liquor 'N' Guns = Fun" blowout every Wednesday night at a local bar?

                        Or do the people just really hate Wednesdays there? "F*****g Wednesday. I'd rather die than go through another f*****g Wednesday here."
                        I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. -- Raymond Chandler

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                        • #13
                          Quoth MystyGlyttyr View Post
                          "Not enough people died!"
                          Trust me, that is a bad thing.... Not enough dead people means I need to tell Darwin to get off his lazy ass and let Natural Selection work.

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                          • #14
                            Quoth TNT View Post
                            A spike on Thursday... is there something strange going on there Wednesdays?
                            LOL No, nothing that fun. It's just that the majority of funerals down here happen on Saturday (some places will actually hold the bodies a couple of extra days to get a funeral on Saturday, eeeeyuck!). So the funeral homes/families want the notices in the paper on Friday, the day before. So, they send most of the obits to me on Thursday which makes that a busier day than most.

                            I've actually been studying my obits to see if I can find any noticeable patterns in the way people die, and while there SEEMS to be a five-week cycle of busy/slow, it's nothing concrete yet. I'm still compiling the data. Whoot.
                            "Maybe the problem just went away...maybe it was the magical sniper fairy that comes and gives silenced hollow point rounds to people who don't eat their vegetables."

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                            • #15
                              Quoth tollbaby View Post
                              Ithing. Back when my mom was little, when not everybody had a private phone (they had a party line at the general store, if I recall, until she was 5 or 6), people would place obit notices rather than contacting everyone directly, because it was easier, and papers tended to have wider circulation.*
                              Didn't most of those obit readers also live in the same area? I think they just do the reading to make themselves feel alive or they are believing in the age old superstitions that you could be dead and not realize it till you saw some evidence. Said evidence being the obit. Even a comedian did a routine involving the reading of obits to see if he was in it.

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