DOA, Chapter 18

“People stopped reading his material. His jokes got worse and worse, his wine blog stalled, and he started repeating the same stuff over and over again and re-sharing old posts from years ago. And then, one after another, his followers unsubscribed. He tried to make a comeback with mystery writing, but you can see how that’s going. Would you believe somebody actually told him to pour himself a glass of dry white wine and give up writing? Somebody else said that they had had either one too many or one too few drinks to help him with his plot line.  He literally fell apart. It was painful to watch.”

“I can only imagine. When was this?”

“October of last year. He was an afterlifetime donor, you know.”

“Didn’t know that. We’re grateful for his service. So, what did you do?”

“What else could we do? We picked up his bones, put them in a blue bag, put the bag out on the corner of Read and Ploy, and called Bin 206 to schedule a pickup.”

“And that was the end of it?”

“Well, not exactly. Bin 206 had just moved over to a weekly schedule, so the bag sat out for a few days. After the second night we put the bag in a box because something had gotten into it. But the weather was nice at the time, and they eventually took him and the others.”

Weather Summary for Baltimore, Maryland, October 2017

“Were you home every night, from the time you put him down to the time they picked him up?”

“For the most part. Except for that one night when they were filming the big crowd scene for The Clipocalypse in the alley behind the church on Mount Vernon Place.”

“Ah, what a great night that was! All the Chips were down for it. Well, thank you for your time.”

“You’re welcome.”