THE DEAD BODY BY THE ROAD

My family and I were driving home to Agate Bay, on Northshore Road rounding Lake Whatcom east of Bellingham, Washington. It was a dark night, and as we were passing the driveway going up the hill to the Lake Whatcom Residential and Treatment Center (a "DSHS licensed not-for-profit organization providing an array of residential and community mental health services to adults with severe and persistent mental illness in Whatcom and surrounding counties"), we saw a man's body lying on the shoulder of the road! Of course we pulled over, with our headlights shining on the body, and while my family stared aghast from the car, I stepped out and cautiously approached the apparent victim of a hit-and-run.

The thought occurred to me: Maybe it's a patient from the mental institution up the hill, lying there pretending he's dead, but ready to jump up and attack me or something. I cursed my vivid imagination.

But as I got near, I realized that the body was only a dummy someone had put together out of stuffed old clothes to scare the hell out of some driver. And no doubt the perpetrator was watching, silently giggling behind some bush. The trauma of the whole episode crippled my sense of humor, though, and I began kicking the dummy, which must have looked horrible to my family in the car. I kicked it apart and threw the shoes into the deep grass by the lake, reeled around and shouted, "Very funny!" to whomever, and got back into the car and drove on.

A smiling little imp on my shoulder leaned in and whispered in my ear, "You can dish it out, but you can't take it." Really it was a pretty neat prank, something I would have gotten a kick out of doing if I had thought of it. So, good job, whoever.




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