One night we were all hanging out in a friend’s basement, when Applejack arrived. She had a newspaper that she said she’d been laughing her ass off over at a diner. This caused people to stare, especially since the cause of such mirth was the obituaries.

It turns out there was an obituary featuring a picture of an old dude with his face frozen in some ridiculous expression, and his hair was about ten kinds of crazy. Applejack could not stop howling with laughter and was like, “Someone must’ve hated their father [to make this his obituary pic]!” and Alien added, “That was the photo taken of him when he died!” I couldn’t believe that picture was actually in the paper. It was disturbingly funny.

Then I had to go and ruin everything with my thinking! I couldn’t believe someone could be so cruel to someone else. The guy didn’t look like a terrible person, after all.

Then Sir noted that the obituary mentioned that he was a patient from a local mental hospital, and I just felt sick about the whole thing. Maybe the guy had approved the picture himself, believing that to be the one he looked the best in. Maybe it pained everyone to put it in there and they worried people would laugh. Maybe the guy was perfectly amicable and just liked indulging in inoffensive, harmless hobbies. I think the obituary listed all the wholesome, life-loving things he liked to do, like watching movies and going on field trips, and I think it made me feel even worse.

If only it had come with a disclaimer! If only the obit had said, “He wanted this picture in here! He was totally cognizant and tongue-in-cheek when he picked it out! He wanted to shock you and make you laugh. He was being revolutionary!”

But it didn’t say anything of the sort.

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