This isn't my story to tell, but I just have to...
Some of you may remember Todd. And some of you who know me well IRL might also know I have a subgenre of tales called "Todd Stories." So recently Todd called me up and we were chatting, and I brought up an incident in which a group of us went skiing/snowboarding together at Loon and he had to leave early.
Todd: "Did I ever tell you why I had to leave early?"
Well, it turns out that Todd had to leave because one of his goats died. His wife, Maura, is extremely fond of animals, and was quite upset by the death. By the time Todd got home, she had left the house to hang out with some friends who were consoling her.
Todd's one objective: dispose of the goat's body before his emotionally distraught wife got home.
But how to do this? It was mid-winter; the ground was frozen, so burying the goat was out of the question.
Recalling an NPR segment on the beauties of cremation in India, Todd hit upon a plan: he would burn the goat.
So he gathered a load of firewood, built a pyre, and flung the corpse on top. However, he soon encountered a problem. In Todd's words: "What I didn't anticipate was that there was enough FLUID in a dead goat to actually put out the fire."
What followed in Todd's retelling were many gruesome images..."rivers of gore" flowing down the driveway and staining the snow, the odor of charred flesh, things exploding, etc. Keep in mind--the emotionally fragile, traumatized, animal-loving Maura might come home at ANY MOMENT.
Todd: "Chrissy, it was so horrible I had to start DRINKING just to finish the job. And all I had in the house was a bottle of whiskey."
So there Todd stood in the blood-spattered snow, in his eskimo hat and mukluks, holding a bottle of J.D., trying to get this goat to burn, and hoping to God his wife didn't come home. He heaped on more and more wood, got the fire restarted, and was faced with the problem of the goat's legs, which kept flopping out of the fire. He had to get a shovel and....
Okay, so FINALLY he managed to reduce the corpse to ash.
Todd: "I was amazed I had gotten it down to just ashes. I mean, I was expecting my dogs to come running up to me with a skull or something, but it was just gone."
Before Maura could get home, he hurriedly shoveled fresh snow over the Rivers of Gore and the rest of the spatter. He described it pretty much as looking like a mass-murder scene. I'm not sure how much of the whiskey he'd finished at this point, but he ended the story with an indignant word about National Public Radio:
"I'm writing a letter to those idiots at NPR--they made cremation sound so nice and peaceful and dignified."
He also mentioned at the story's end that he now knows how to get rid of a body more efficiently.
We might go snowboarding together again soon. I hope so, if just for the fact that Things Happen with Todd around.
Todd: "Did I ever tell you why I had to leave early?"
Well, it turns out that Todd had to leave because one of his goats died. His wife, Maura, is extremely fond of animals, and was quite upset by the death. By the time Todd got home, she had left the house to hang out with some friends who were consoling her.
Todd's one objective: dispose of the goat's body before his emotionally distraught wife got home.
But how to do this? It was mid-winter; the ground was frozen, so burying the goat was out of the question.
Recalling an NPR segment on the beauties of cremation in India, Todd hit upon a plan: he would burn the goat.
So he gathered a load of firewood, built a pyre, and flung the corpse on top. However, he soon encountered a problem. In Todd's words: "What I didn't anticipate was that there was enough FLUID in a dead goat to actually put out the fire."
What followed in Todd's retelling were many gruesome images..."rivers of gore" flowing down the driveway and staining the snow, the odor of charred flesh, things exploding, etc. Keep in mind--the emotionally fragile, traumatized, animal-loving Maura might come home at ANY MOMENT.
Todd: "Chrissy, it was so horrible I had to start DRINKING just to finish the job. And all I had in the house was a bottle of whiskey."
So there Todd stood in the blood-spattered snow, in his eskimo hat and mukluks, holding a bottle of J.D., trying to get this goat to burn, and hoping to God his wife didn't come home. He heaped on more and more wood, got the fire restarted, and was faced with the problem of the goat's legs, which kept flopping out of the fire. He had to get a shovel and....
Okay, so FINALLY he managed to reduce the corpse to ash.
Todd: "I was amazed I had gotten it down to just ashes. I mean, I was expecting my dogs to come running up to me with a skull or something, but it was just gone."
Before Maura could get home, he hurriedly shoveled fresh snow over the Rivers of Gore and the rest of the spatter. He described it pretty much as looking like a mass-murder scene. I'm not sure how much of the whiskey he'd finished at this point, but he ended the story with an indignant word about National Public Radio:
"I'm writing a letter to those idiots at NPR--they made cremation sound so nice and peaceful and dignified."
He also mentioned at the story's end that he now knows how to get rid of a body more efficiently.
We might go snowboarding together again soon. I hope so, if just for the fact that Things Happen with Todd around.