MONDAY, DECEMBER 31
The week begins (and the year ends) with a life-affirming story from Canada,
where the national transport ministry has unveiled plans to make it harder
for Canadians to kill themselves. Each year, several hundred Canadians
consign themselves to the seventh circle of Hell via the colorless, tasteless,
odorless killing power of carbon monoxide, found most commonly in car exhaust. Today Reuters revealed the particulars of Transport Canada’s
anti-suicide-by-exhaust stance, which employs Last Days’ favorite, the three-pronged
approach. Prong #1: Requiring car makers to install suicide-resistant tailpipes,
which foil would-be suicides by re-routing fumes through hidden venting under
the auto when a hose is attached to the exhaust pipe. (Ford and Nissan have
already developed prototypes of such pipes, which would cost around $2.50 per
car.) Prong #2: Educating people about the deadliness of exhaust fumes. (Uh,
isn’t the deadliness the point?) Prong #3: Doing nothing, and hoping people
stop sucking fumes on their own. Transport Canada has given car makers, importers,
and public safety groups until February 1 to comment on its prongs; as one for
whom suicide by exhaust has frequently been a reasonable and comforting Plan
B, Last Days unequivocally plumps for prong #3.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 1
Today brought the beginning of a new year. To celebrate, Last Days
offers this cautionary tale from Christchurch, New Zealand, where a schoolteacher
learned a chemically enhanced lesson about the dangers (and pleasures) of sweets
from a stranger. “I thought you’d enjoy these. I know they’re your favorites!”
So read the note on the box of chocolates found by a New Zealand schoolteacher
in his residential mailbox. Never mind that the package sported a British postmark
and was addressed to a stranger–our hero wasted no time in scarfing three of
the mystery chocolates before giving one each to his sister and brother-in-law,
who soon after began feeling “weird.” Inspecting the candy, the family found small round tablets encased in plastic wrap inside eight of the remaining
chocolates, which authorities later confirmed to be the teeth-clenching, affection-boosting
party drug Ecstasy. Reuters reports that the family was “extremely worried”
after its accidental E dosings, but family members have since received clean
bills of health from their doctors, and clean bills of crime from the police.
“Obviously, the three people who ate the chocolates are not going to be charged
with possession,” said Christchurch constable Greg Sutherland. “They’d never
even heard of Ecstasy.”
··Also today: Hot on the heels of Winona Ryder‘s shameful
Saks shoplifting spree comes another tale of superfluous thievery, this
one from Vancouver, BC, where police are on the lookout for a legless
man wanted for allegedly stealing 10 pairs of pants from the Gap.
Reuters reports that a number of witnesses saw the wheelchair-bound man flee
a West Vancouver Gap store carrying $1,600 worth of tastefully casual pants
and jackets. Police are still searching for the differently-abled pants bandit,
who authorities say escaped the scene of the crime in a car that had previously
been reported stolen.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2
Just when you thought it was safe to leave the house, today brought news of
a ghastly public grooming incident in Queen Anne. This evening
at Uptown Cinemas, Hot Tipper Trish was just settling down to enjoy Wes
Anderson’s Salinger-gone-slapstick opus The Royal Tenenbaums when
her eyes fell on a sight almost too gruesome to report. “I was waiting
for the movie to start,” writes Trish, “when I noticed this girl holding her
bare feet in her lap. When I looked again [fragile readers, stop now],
she was rubbing lotion on them.” Trish concludes her Hot Tip with the
age-old question: “What the fuck was that hippie bitch thinking?” Dear
Trish: Unfortunately Last Days is unable to tell you what was going through
Ms. Lubriped’s mind when she executed her atrocity. But we can tell you what
was going through ours when we read about it: Fatwa.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 3
Today Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delivered a national
address on the United States’ continuing military action in Afghanistan.
Last Days watched the televised address in its entirety; unfortunately, all
we can recall is Rumsfeld’s mirthful smirk upon entering, his sonorous drone
while speaking, and his curious pronunciations of the words Taliban,
which rhymed with “Cinnabon,” and bin Laden, which rhymed with “Iron
Maiden.”
FRIDAY, JANUARY 4
Speaking of would-be Satanists (Iron Maiden, not Donald Rumsfeld–there’s
nothing would-be about him): Today the Independent UK told the bewitching
tale of Josephine Gray, the 55-year-old Maryland woman currently under
investigation for insurance fraud. However, swindling State Farm is perhaps
the least of Ms. Gray’s deeds. Since 1974, two of Josephine Gray’s husbands
and one of her lovers have been shot dead, with each of the deaths followed
by allegations that Ms. Gray used “dark powers” to enlist accomplices to kill
them. In each case, incriminating evidence against Ms. Gray evaporated when
witnesses abruptly refused to cooperate amid spooky stories of incantations,
potions, and voodoo spells. “I do not practice voodoo and I do not practice
witchcraft,” said Ms. Gray when she was charged with her second husband’s death.
“Just because I go and buy a lucky charm to play the lottery and buy herbs,
or take olive oil and anoint myself, that’s in the Bible.” What isn’t in the
Bible are the insurance policies Gray took out on each of the deceased,
from which she collected $165,000. Prosecutors now say that Gray’s insurance
settlements violated a Maryland law banning a person from receiving benefits
if they caused or participated in the death of the insured. Armed with enough
evidence to prove that Josephine Gray was at least involved in the killings,
prosecutors are confident they can finally secure a conviction against the murderous
would-be witch.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 5
Today in Tampa, Florida, a 15-year-old boy flew a Cessna plane into
a 42-story Bank of America building, killing himself and baffling everyone else.
The facts of the young kamikaze’s life reveal little with regard to motive:
A high-school honors student, Charles Bishop largely kept to himself,
enjoying the company of his terrier and his dream of one day owning a Honda
Civic. (It’s true; he told a classmate.) But never mind the mystery. In
this age of relentless murder-suicides, Charles Bishop is just the kind of wacko
we need–clean, direct, quiet, and hurting no one but himself. Congratulations
to Mr. Bishop on a psycho deed well done.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 6
To conclude the week, Last Days ventured to the scene of Wednesday’s heinous
foot-rubbing crime, Queen Anne’s Uptown Cinemas. And while we were mercifully
spared the sight of a patchouli-drenched lassie oiling her hooves, we were quite
unmercifully dragged into a moral and emotional hurricane by In the Bedroom,
the beautiful new film by Todd Fields, and the finest tribute to American understatement
and cinematic good taste since The Last Picture Show. Last Days apologizes
for going all Larry King on your asses, but we simply must inform you
that In the Bedroom is the best movie we’ve seen this year, and demand
that you go see it right now.
Send Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com.
