Have a Nice Morning!

In the locker room at the gym, two elderly ladies were engaged in a very loud conversation while I was changing behind a curtain. The cheery subject they chose for their morning chat was dead husbands.

“. . . And when she woke up, he was lying there DEAD. He was completely cold and blue, so he must have been DEAD for hours!”

“. . . And when she went outside, he was lying in the snow DEAD. He’d slipped and broken his neck!”

“Gosh, this is probably the most morbid subject they could have chosen at this early hour,” I thought.

As if to prove me wrong, the women switched to an even juicier topic: dead babies.

“She gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby boy but 3 months later he just DIED!” one of them vociferated gleefully.

“. . . The baby was born premature and only lived for two days,” the second woman chimed in.

When I emerged from behind the curtain, the ladies looked at me inquisitively.

“Do you have any stories about sudden death?” one of them asked in an eager voice. “I’m sure you do. Everybody has heard a story or two about somebody who just DIED all of a sudden.”

I wanted to tell them that I knew a story about this woman whose baby died and then there were two elderly ladies who aggravated her at the swimming pool. And then these ladies were found in the locker room and they were DEAD. They were completely blue and cold and had probably been lying there for hours.

But I’m not cruel, so I just wished them a nice morning and left.