So here's a little bit o' fiction that popped into my head on the drive home yesterday:

"Let me tell you something, son," the old undertaker said as he dried his hands on his deeply stained apron, "this business is all about repeat customers. Any asshole with a suit and a slick pitch can go out there right now - today - and talk some idiot out of a few thousand dollars. But to get that same idiot to come back in a few years, and every few years after that, and drop a few thousand on you each time, well, you got to make the customer happy to do that.

"And I'll tell you something else," he continued, "nothing makes a customer less happy and less likely to come back in a few years then when Uncle Ralph, all laid out in the box, like, lets rip with a great rattling belch, redolent with the sick sweet smell of rotting human flesh. And if he does it during a moment of silence between Amazing Grace and the pastor speaking, say, then it's that much worse."

He lit a fat, cheap cigar and, once he got it burning, pointed at me with it. "That's why you never let the new guy sew the lips shut," he said, "and I always do the embalming myself."

He died several years later. His son, with whom he had never gotten along, took care of the funeral arrangements. I heard it was a plain pine box, and that the old man shook and kicked like an epileptic as they lowered it into the ground.

"It happens," the son said, calming the uneasy crowd around the gravesite, "but I assure you he's dead. It's entirely natural."

You know, that happens to me every once in a while. I get a clever turn of phrase or a little mini-narrative, and they just pop in my head, completely formed.

If only a 90,000 word historical romance would pop into my head, huh?

My friend Siobhan has mice in her apartment. I wrote her the following yesterday, telling her about my experiences with mice in apartments.

At our last apartment we had mice. During the
winter, anyway. It was a 100-year-old building,
and it had been extensively renovated. I guess
it stirred up the mice.

We first found out we had mice when we left a
pan - full of bacon grease - on the stove one
night. The next morning there were little mousy
footprints across the grease.

I put out some of those sticky traps one night
before bed, 'cause Sonya didn't want me to use
the instantly lethal snap-traps. I put a sticky
trap on top of the refrigerator (where the mice
had been eating Roxy's treats) and went to bed.

I heard the rustling and squeaking the next
morning before I even went in the kitchen.

The poor little guy's back feet and tail were
stuck to the sticky stuff. He'd made some progress -
managing to stick a potholder to the trap, along
with himself - but he was obviously exhausted.
When he saw me, though, he started squeaking
and struggling anew.

I felt terrible. I took him and the trap into
the stairwell next to our apartment, along with
a butterknife. I slowly pried him off the trap.
He bled a little, and I felt even worse about
that. Eventually, he was free to go and went
scampering down the stairs.

I hate the sticky traps.

Did anyone out there watch Buffy last night? It was good TV. Emmy-level good TV. If you missed it you're a booger.

I got a hit from Internet Alaska last night. Here, for all my Alaskan readers, is the Alaska Remix of wonderland 2.

"Aaaaah! Aaaaah! It's fuckin' cold! Oh, Jesus, I'm freezin' to death! Aaaah! Aaaah! The igloo just collapsed! Oh sweet Jesus - polar bears are attacking!"

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