As Michelle and I were hanging out having a nice bottle of wine and reading some magazines, Michelle decided it would be cool to have pillows on each chair in the house which indicated whose seat it was. For example, I would have a pillow labeled “Frank” on my favorite chair.

This would be significantly cooler, apparently, if there was someone in the family named “Fred”. “Who could we have who would be named ‘Fred’?”, asked Michelle. I assumed the domain of items this included was not restricted to people, but could be anything ranging from wildlife to pets to inanimate objects, so long as a name could be assigned to it. (Michelle has a habit of naming almost anything.)

Suddenly, my memory jumped back to my older brother and his first goldfish named Fred. Shockingly, Fred died. When he did, Erik placed his corpse in a tin Sucrets box, wrapped the box entirely in masking tape and carefully labeled it, “Fred”.

“We kept that box for years. I remember it very well”, I told Michelle, who immediately winced. I continued, “I remember we used to shake the box. The bones rattled.”

And then came the reply, “There’s a dignified death. Becoming a tambourine for a bunch of Dutch kids. Nice.”