"Wake Up and Smell the Coffin"

***
I sleep with a flashlight and a razor sharp machete near my bed.

That way, if an intruder enters my apartment, I'll have a pleasant little surprize waiting for him. I'll be feeding my backyard dog "burglar steak," marinated in Hawaiian teriyaki sauce, in a very short time.

Well, last night, after a marathon of taping The Larry Sanders Show episodes that appeared on our television, I felt more groggy than usual, and went to bed early, about 2 AM.

A couple of hours later, my wife woke me up, nudging me with her elbow.

"Wake up," she urged me gently. "Honey, wake up."

"Huh?" I grumbled feebly. "Whuh...whudya mean? What for?"

I had a meeting the next day at 3 PM, so I planned on sleeping until noon, whilst she gets up at 6 AM every week day, to be at work by 8 AM. Women take two hours to do what a guy can do in twelve minutes.

"Smell the coffin?" she explained satisfactorily.

"That's nice," I replied and rolled over to go back to sleepy land.

"No," she argued, "It's not nice at all. Don't you smell that odor? It smells like a coffin."

"Coffee?" I mumbled. "Cream and buckwheat honey. Boston cream pie."

I was so tired, nothing was getting through to my dreamy brain.

"Coffin, not coffee. Can't you smell that? I'm sure it's a coffin."

My wife used to work in a funeral parlor, mortuary, cadaver warehouse, or whatever you choose to call it. She knew what coffins smelled like, but I didn't.

I grabbed my flashlight and machete, turned on the flashlight, used it like a search light, a spot of light slipped silently from wall to wall.

"What good is a machete against a vampire?" my wife argued cogently.

"What vampire?" I asked.

"If there's a coffin in here, there must be a vampire in it, or recently stepped out of it."

I decided to agree with her, so I could go back to sleep.

Which I did promptly.

I vaguely remember her making a little muffled moan, which I interpreted as her displeasure with my sleepy-headedness.

She was, to my eyes, the most beautiful and sexy woman in the whole world, and she loved me with all her heart. She made me laugh all the time, and she was highly intelligent to boot. We had a good, some might even say great, married life.

The next morning, she was gone, and my dog was dead, drained of all its blood.

I never saw my wife again.

I guess I'll never know what happened that night.

Boy, was I ever worn out from watching all those Larry Sanders Show episodes, starring Gary Shandling and Rip Torn.

Plus, it was hard work taping them for future viewing, pausing during the commercials, hitting the pause button again, to re-activate the record function, when the commercials were over, you know.

That activity can be rather exhausting.


THE END