The Choking Death of Aunt Bea

We like to think our pets love us for the right reasons...

One of the conversation starters in my family given how bored we are with one another is the question, do you remember the death of Aunt Bea?

Bea was married the second time around to the familiar tycoon Napoleon Richards, whose company as you probably know had for decades supplied the springs for Bic pens. This was at the age of 67. She was still a handsome woman, and Richards, now 71 and having echewed marriage through his prime years in favor of expensive escorts, had experienced a change of heart with the onset of dementia. Additionally, he had become an easy mark.

One day after dinner, with the couple still at the table and their off-white toy poodle Janice looking on, and with Jason (as Napoleon was known) attempting to draw a spring on the tablecloth as per his doctor’s advice, Bea was choking on a piece of bacon. Long and undercooked, it would go neither up nor down, and was too slippery for a solid grip. It seemed to be caught on something. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to Bea, it was merely the worst. She was known for being very fond of this dangerous food, and Jason didn’t pay a lot of attention until things began to drag-on. He eventually ran out into the street for help, wandering down to the corner bar, sitting at his usual place and watching the hockeygame that was always going on inside the TV dangling there. He had never been a fan of hockey, or anything else, but now he liked everything. This time, however, he cut things short remembering there were more urgent things to attend to. It was time for his nap.

A local constable directed him to his house and when he went into the kitchen Bea was immobile on the floor beside her overturned chair, Janice braced before her face wrenching back on the still-protruding rasher, growling. Jason watched this awhile, then went into the next room. He glanced at the phone, turned-on the TV, and sat back in his Townsend leather recliner.

It was a difficult process for the police, extracting these events from Jason. Like prying the last deep shreds of meat from the claws of a crab. Anyways, it is a custom in my family, as I don’t doubt it is in yours, to mention the cause of death on the headstone, along with some of the pertinent details, if known or rumoured. We didn’t do this with Aunt Bea, it was impossble to make her demise seem enviable. I have been party to quite a bit of death, most of it unpleasant, but none so ignominious as this. But that’s the way it goes. It’s still perfectly acceptable to just list the names and the dates. There’s a very good chance that you and I will experience a highly unpleasant end, the details of which we may or may not want indelibly displayed for reasons of being merely tedious. Arguably, even “died in their sleep” is worth signalling, for being well-played and apt to evoke some jealousy somewhere. But not just for this. It’s about as good as it gets, now. Few of us will enjoy the privilege of a really interesting or violent death anymore. “Eaten alive by wild beasts” is particularly boastworthy, and not near as unpleasant as you might imagine. There is a great deal of adrenaline typically involved that blots out all pain. Doctor Livingstone for instance reported that being mauled by a lion was not at all uncomfortable and much like watching someone else being mauled by a lion. That sort of dreamy detachment. But this is a thing of the past for most of us.

Janince had eaten a fair bit of Bea’s forearm by the time her death had become known. This is not an uncommon thing at all, according to my friend Ron, a retired cop who has experienced his share. His own Jack Russell terrier having eaten portions of his one leg whilst he was merely relaxing out on the deck.

We like to think our pets love us for the right reasons, that adoration is behind their sitting there staring at us, but in truth we can never be sure.