Lemondrop

"Are there any cool dead people today?"

It was a question I sickly relished hearing almost every morning at the obits desk during my first year of employment. The words would tumble shamelessly from the mouth of a certain sports editor.

"Hmmm, let's see ... former voice actor ..." I offered one morning, knowing that the selection was hardly going to meet his expectations.

"Naw. Come on, Elizabeth, you can do better than that."

"You know, I don't actually get to pick who shows up in my in-box every morning," I said, scrolling through the obits file on my computer. I ducked a little bit as the sports guy peered over my head to assist in the search.

"Oh, but wouldn't it be awesome if you could?"

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"Oooh -- they actually bothered to list convictions in this one," he went on, with an impressive amount of glee. "That's kinda cool."

"If I could pick who showed up in my in-box each day, it would be no one," I said to him.

Which is totally not true. Er, I mean, which is not totally true. At the very least, I'm all for population control. On those days when I'm a tad moody and can't help but hate people, I'm psyched to have any and all obits. "Six down, 6.6 billion to go," my brain will say.

But what I meant at the time was that I didn't want any obits so I wouldn't have to deal with the families.

It's only natural to be in a self-centered state when grieving the loss of a loved one, and I don't begrudge anyone the mentality that their loss is in the most important thing in world. I don't begrudge others the idea that their late loved ones are the most important people in the world, either. It's just a little challenging to interact with 27 different people who feel that way over a course of eight hours.

That's kinda why "cool dead person of the day" came into existence. The unofficial honor of "cool dead person" has nothing to do with how many achievements are listed, or how well-known the person was, or even how many times the word "beloved" is used in the original obituary text (current "beloved" record: 39 in seven paragraphs).

"Here we go," I said to the sports editor, who was just about to lose interest. "This guy apparently was the inventor of kitty litter."

"Oh! Oh! Oh, my God! And he's local? That's fantastic! We have a winner!"

That's right, the unofficial honor is based on a random detail, and a random detail alone. One morning, "cool dead person of the day" went to a woman who proposed to her future husband with a sea bass instead of a ring.

I love the kitty litter inventors of the world, but not more than any other person that comes across my desk, per se. The tiny details revealed of their often unassuming lives, though, do not go unnoticed.