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    ####  ###             "Jason on Waste Disposal"                ###       
     #######                      by Jason                                  
      ####                                                                  

        The other day my coworker and I were musing about the mysteries of
 life, as we often do when we feel like dispelling the evil specter of work
 which we are able to hold at bay for about seven and a half hours a day.
 The subject of mortality came up (or was it strained peas?).  Naturally,
 this led to the subject of what to do with the increasing percentage of old
 people in our ranks.  We talked briefly of the horrors of nursing homes,
 with a bunch of drooling, semiconscious, incontinent shells of humanity
 puttering around, vaguely aware that they might someday die.  I said that I
 love my parents too much for that.  I'd take them behind the tool shed and
 do an Old Yeller on 'em.

        There had to be some better options, we decided.  I always thought
 they would make good doorstops, although they're someone higher maintenance
 than a rubber wedge.  We considered labor in some of the more mindless jobs
 on earth, such as politics, which has always proven to be a spacious dumping
 ground for the elderly who are a few beers short of a sixpack, but that's a
 little cruel.  Finally, we came to the conclusion that there was only one
 way to deal with it before they sucked our Social Security dry:

        Soylent Green.

        We also wondered what to do with all the dead people.  The U.S. is a
 big place, but sooner or later we'll run out of space.  In Europe they just
 dig up the bodies after about 50 years and throw the bones in a cave.  In
 India, they throw them into their drinking water where they putrefy.  I
 think we, as Americans, can do better than that.  Cremation is so wasteful
 and burial is just a pain in the ass.  I suppose some people would be a bit
 too squeamish to do the obvious thing, which would be to turn them into
 Spam.  Irrational, but true.  Heck, most people probably won't even admit to
 themselves that hot dogs are about 25% Mexican orphan.

        The other option is pet food.  They wouldn't be able to tell the
 difference, nor would they care.  I wouldn't be too inclined to feed it to
 something like a pit bull, lest the loving pet acquire a taste for human
 meat.  Of course, I wouldn't be dumb enough to buy something as dangerous as
 a pit bull anyway.  Just tarantulas for me (I just got three new ones!  Woo
 hoo!).

        If humans are still too squeamish about doing something practical
 with the dead, we can actually put the Dakotas to some use.  These two
 exceedingly flat states have virtually nothing to offer us except a lot of
 empty space.  I maintain that if we designated, say, South Dakota "The Dead
 State", we would have TONS of room to plant the stiffs, and we won't be
 wasting prime building or farmland.  People could be alphabetized by county.
 The state flower would be the black rose!  The state bird would be the crow!
 The state insect would be the carrion beetle!  The state slogan would be
 "Dead and lovin' it!"  The license plate would be gray on black!  Tourism
 would go up, that's for sure.

        We still haven't figured out what to do with North Dakota.  Maybe it
 should be the National Landfill.

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 # (c)2000 aNAda e'zine                              aNAda055 .*.  by Jason #
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