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"He's not dead until I say he's dead!"
With those words, the County Coroner stated that he would not declare Delroy Smith dead until after the election, no matter what the facts were. And let's be honest, Delroy was indeed quite dead. Since retiring from the Public Works Department three years ago, the only days he's smoked one pack of cigarettes were those days he was too drunk to go to the store to buy a second pack. And as for drinking, he wasn't particular. He figured nine in the morning was as good a time as nine in the night to start.
So it came to no shock to anyone that he'd finally keeled over. And, when you think about it, less of a shock to know that the Coroner, Dwight Bartlett, wasn't going to declare him dead two hours before voting started. Delroy and Dwight had been friends for years, and Delroy had voted for Dwight in every election in the last 20 years.
The opposition candidate, of course, howled bloody murder. "The dead can't vote!" he cried. But Dwight calmly reminded him that Delroy's proxy ballot was already on record, given that Delroy had planned on being in a drunken stupor on election day, it being a Thursday. (Delroy was a man of habit, and rightly figured that if he was going to spend half of Sunday being stone cold sober for church, then he felt the Lord owed him for that, and took Thursdays off for serious drinking.) Besides which, as Dwight mentioned, according to the laws of the county, Delroy wasn't officially dead until the Coroner signed the death certificate.
To say that Dwight's statement was taken poorly is to understate the entire matter. But the opposition was a relative newcomer, only having lived here seven or eight years, and a northerner at that. His arguements about medical evidence went unheeded as well. I mean, any damn fool can tell when someone's dead or not, so why should the Coroner have to be a doctor? Dwight was just holding off on a little signature, that's all. It's not like he didn't have the election sewn up already, it was the principal of the thing... Delroy had intended to vote for Dwight, and so he would.
When it was all said and done, Dwight won by a landslide, of course, so it's not like Delroy's vote changed anything. Sure was an impressive funeral that was thrown for him, though.
With those words, the County Coroner stated that he would not declare Delroy Smith dead until after the election, no matter what the facts were. And let's be honest, Delroy was indeed quite dead. Since retiring from the Public Works Department three years ago, the only days he's smoked one pack of cigarettes were those days he was too drunk to go to the store to buy a second pack. And as for drinking, he wasn't particular. He figured nine in the morning was as good a time as nine in the night to start.
So it came to no shock to anyone that he'd finally keeled over. And, when you think about it, less of a shock to know that the Coroner, Dwight Bartlett, wasn't going to declare him dead two hours before voting started. Delroy and Dwight had been friends for years, and Delroy had voted for Dwight in every election in the last 20 years.
The opposition candidate, of course, howled bloody murder. "The dead can't vote!" he cried. But Dwight calmly reminded him that Delroy's proxy ballot was already on record, given that Delroy had planned on being in a drunken stupor on election day, it being a Thursday. (Delroy was a man of habit, and rightly figured that if he was going to spend half of Sunday being stone cold sober for church, then he felt the Lord owed him for that, and took Thursdays off for serious drinking.) Besides which, as Dwight mentioned, according to the laws of the county, Delroy wasn't officially dead until the Coroner signed the death certificate.
To say that Dwight's statement was taken poorly is to understate the entire matter. But the opposition was a relative newcomer, only having lived here seven or eight years, and a northerner at that. His arguements about medical evidence went unheeded as well. I mean, any damn fool can tell when someone's dead or not, so why should the Coroner have to be a doctor? Dwight was just holding off on a little signature, that's all. It's not like he didn't have the election sewn up already, it was the principal of the thing... Delroy had intended to vote for Dwight, and so he would.
When it was all said and done, Dwight won by a landslide, of course, so it's not like Delroy's vote changed anything. Sure was an impressive funeral that was thrown for him, though.