Unsatisfied
My wife's parents live in Victoria, B.C. She talks to them a couple times a week, and the exchange is usually predictable - stories about the old folks' young granddaughter head west, while stories about the retiree social scene come east.
Well, something different happened last week.
To set this up, you should be aware, faithful readers, that my mother-in-law spends as much of her available time paddling - she is part of a paddling club, socializes with other paddling club members regularly, and bombards my wife with paddling anecdotes, often involving seeing a seal in the harbour.
But on Sunday, my wife relayed to me that Mom and her paddling group came upon - not a seal - but a dead body.
"A dead body?" I asked, astonished. Then I began to ask questions.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Somebody saw it and they called the police," was the reply.
"Do the police know who it was?"
"She didn't say."
"Do they know what happened? Did he drown? Was the body dumped?"
"She didn't say."
"Didn't she follow up?
"Was it a man or a woman?"
"She didn't say."
"Didn't you ask?" I asked.
"No," my wife answered. "I didn't think of it."
It was true. Not only had mother-in-law casually glossed over the whole incident with the barest minimum of detail, but wife had compounded the effect by neglecting to probe any further. Never before had such a juicy anecdote been done such injustice in the retelling. This was the opening scene of a Law & Order episode, and it was rolled into a discussion about the weather and the price of gas on Vancouver Island.
I think you're probably beginning to see how I would have reacted, volunteering to look through mug shots, make statements, whatever (I don't have anything as exciting as paddling to otherwise occupy my thoughts). Then I would dine out on the story for weeks, months, maybe years afterward. Faithful readers I think would be unsurprised at the extensive number of pretexts I might use to bring up 'the time I found a dead body' story.
"I found a five-dollar bill on the sidewalk this morning." - "Oh yeah, I found a dead body."
"The beach in Cuba was so beautiful." - "Last time I saw the ocean there was a dead body in it."
"Do you have the time?" - "I found a dead body."
But I was surprised how blase my wife was about the whole thing. "I don't know. I didn't ask," she kept repeating frustratingly.
Properly chastened, wife followed up with mother-in-law by phone and reported tersely the bare bones of the case: man, roughly 45 , found in the Inner Harbour, wearing black pants and white shirt, no foul play suspected. Well, that's something anyway.
Now, it's possible my morbid curiousity is an overreaction - evidently the story of the body's discovery was mentioned in the Victoria Times-Colonist newspaper (which erroneously listed the dicoverers as 'rowers' not 'paddlers'), but it didn't make the online version. I guess it just wasn't big enough news.
Well, something different happened last week.
To set this up, you should be aware, faithful readers, that my mother-in-law spends as much of her available time paddling - she is part of a paddling club, socializes with other paddling club members regularly, and bombards my wife with paddling anecdotes, often involving seeing a seal in the harbour.
But on Sunday, my wife relayed to me that Mom and her paddling group came upon - not a seal - but a dead body.
"A dead body?" I asked, astonished. Then I began to ask questions.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Somebody saw it and they called the police," was the reply.
"Do the police know who it was?"
"She didn't say."
"Do they know what happened? Did he drown? Was the body dumped?"
"She didn't say."
"Didn't she follow up?
"Was it a man or a woman?"
"She didn't say."
"Didn't you ask?" I asked.
"No," my wife answered. "I didn't think of it."
It was true. Not only had mother-in-law casually glossed over the whole incident with the barest minimum of detail, but wife had compounded the effect by neglecting to probe any further. Never before had such a juicy anecdote been done such injustice in the retelling. This was the opening scene of a Law & Order episode, and it was rolled into a discussion about the weather and the price of gas on Vancouver Island.
I think you're probably beginning to see how I would have reacted, volunteering to look through mug shots, make statements, whatever (I don't have anything as exciting as paddling to otherwise occupy my thoughts). Then I would dine out on the story for weeks, months, maybe years afterward. Faithful readers I think would be unsurprised at the extensive number of pretexts I might use to bring up 'the time I found a dead body' story.
"I found a five-dollar bill on the sidewalk this morning." - "Oh yeah, I found a dead body."
"The beach in Cuba was so beautiful." - "Last time I saw the ocean there was a dead body in it."
"Do you have the time?" - "I found a dead body."
But I was surprised how blase my wife was about the whole thing. "I don't know. I didn't ask," she kept repeating frustratingly.
Properly chastened, wife followed up with mother-in-law by phone and reported tersely the bare bones of the case: man, roughly 45 , found in the Inner Harbour, wearing black pants and white shirt, no foul play suspected. Well, that's something anyway.
Now, it's possible my morbid curiousity is an overreaction - evidently the story of the body's discovery was mentioned in the Victoria Times-Colonist newspaper (which erroneously listed the dicoverers as 'rowers' not 'paddlers'), but it didn't make the online version. I guess it just wasn't big enough news.
posted by Benjamin Thornton at 9:50 p.m.
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