Jim liked driving around town with hazard lights on
One of the benefits of being an old man and by that, I mean a really old man, is that by the time the bell tolls for you, you’ve seen everything there is to see and do in life. And that’s exactly how Ryan felt the day he got out of bed and said to himself, “nah I’m not going to make my bed today, I don’t think I’ll be needing it anymore. The only thing I’m sorry about is I won’t be able to take my favourite pillow with me.”
Now you have to understand something about Ryan. His favourite pillow has been his favourite pillow since he was still sleeping in his cot in his ancestral home. People who knew him well would ask what the brown stains were on his pillow, not the case, but the actual pillow and he would tell them they were drool marks he made when he was a few months old, and he never was able to get them out and then he would explain further. “It was a huge bone of contention between my mother and father, when it came to washing clothes. A battle my mother unfortunately for all of us seven children, she won and won quite convincingly. My father insisted that we use Bright All washing soap, but my mother insisted on La La Land biodegradable drool and stain remover because she said it was better for the planet.”
The problem though was this. Ryan’s father owned the company that made the Bright All washing soap and felt that if he was unable to get his family to use it, then how was he going to get other people to buy it. His mother Marjorie would hear none of it.
“The stuff your company makes,” she would say to him, “would rot your teeth.”
That argument would make his father Brian roll his eyes because as he always said to his wife, “it’s not supposed to be drunk, just wash your clothes in it.”
She would then reply, “if you can’t drink it, then you shouldn’t clean your clothes with it because one day you might become really stressed and chew on your handkerchief and would you ingest all the chemicals. Whereas I can,” and with that she put a bottle on La La Land and drool and stain remover to her lips and gulped it down. Besides burping a few bubbles, she was fine.
But you could always tell Ryan and his siblings in a crowd on the playground at school, because the drool marks and stains on their clothes never came out. The rest of the school used Bright All washing soap and had nice clean clothes. And so, it was with Ryan’s favourite pillow.
He was now 101 years old, and his pillow had 101 years of drool marks and stains the kind that built up on his pillow. Even after he was on his own, once he left home, he was scared of his mother, so he continued using the La La Land drool and stain remover when he washed his clothes. In fact, he was very proud that if he was able to take his pillow with him to heaven, or wherever, he could show his mother that he stayed loyal to her by using the awful washing soap which remained in existence for decades. In fact, Ryan made sure they did, by buying the company when he got his inheritance when his father passed away. In fact, there was an argument among all 7 siblings as to what to do with the money. The other 6 siblings bought out their father’s interest in the Bright All company, while Ryan with his portion of the inheritance bought out the struggling La La Land drool and stain remover company.
Now we don’t have to say anything further on that matter as we can imagine how that ended. Ryan never married. The closest he got was when he asked his longtime babysitter to marry him and she replied, “on condition I use Bright All washing soap. I don’t want my family walking around with clean dirty clothes.”
Ryan, if nothing else, was very loyal but to the wrong people. So, they didn’t get married.
As Ryan stood by his bed, he looked down at his pillow and then an errant tear fell on it. “Damn!” he said, “another stain,” and that was it. And so, it happened. Ryan didn’t make his bed in anticipation of that being his last day on earth. However, he didn’t make his bed for the next year or so, swearing to himself that it was going to be his last day. Obviously, the powers to be had other ideas.
Ryan began to get very annoyed, and so he decided one day to begin driving around the town with his hazard lights on which confused people.
“Why are you doing that?” they asked him.
His answer was, “practicing, practising,”
But for what? A question they never asked him. Finally, someone did.
“For my funeral.” He replied exasperated at the stares, “you know when they drive my casket to the funeral pyre they will do so slowly and therefore have their hazard lights on.”
People drank heavily when the day came and Ryan was laid to rest on the top of a funeral pyre, on the left bank of the tiny stream that ran through his small backyard. But before they did that, according to his wishes, he was placed in a car sitting up in the back seat, holding on to his favourite pillow with a stupid grin on his face. They made the rounds of the town. No one came out to pay their respects and then when they got to his home, the driver and passenger got out, pulled him out of the back seat because he was now as stiff as a board and together with his pillow under his arm they threw him on top of the pyre and lit a match. Woosh! The pile of wood went up fast.
“Oh my!” said one funeral director to the other, “did you put kerosene on the funeral pyre? I’ve never seen wood go up that fast.”
“Nah. I went into Ryan’s garage when I got his car out and noticed several bottles of La La Land drool and stain remover. So, I soaked the wood with it and then lit the match. Terrible cleaning stuff, but great lighter fuel.”
One funeral director looked at the other, “anymore in there?”
“Loads,” the other replied. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” and with that, once Ryan and gone up to the laundromat in the sky, the funeral directors collected all the remaining bottles in the garage and took them back to their place of business where they used them for future cremations.