people die in weird ways. (or, texas in the 1800's.)

I like my job, largely because it utilizes my talents. Namely, biting sarcasm and an absurdly comprehensive--as well as detailed--knowledge of Disney movies. I am well-liked at my job. For one, I have a habit of saying things without really thinking them through, and while I am rarely trying to be funny, it seems to end up that way very frequently. For another, I am a veritable font of embarrassing and awesome stories, because if one thing can be said about me, it's that I have led a BIG life. One of my coworkers' favorite games is to give me a topic, and wait for a story to ensue. As you can imagine, this tends to be quite entertaining for everyone involved.

My job, which is technically called "being a quality assurance editor for Fold 3, a division of ancestory.com", but better known as "making offerings to the Great Computer of Doom", mostly consists of me and about 20 other BYU students sitting around at computers, digitizing death certificates and civil war pension applications, while brutally teasing one another and laughing very hard. 

Lately, we've been spending a lot of time on Texas death certificates from the 1800's. I'm not sure who filled out these things, but I think it may be some random person who was handed the form. "Cause of death" seems to be a blank that many of these random individuals have a hard time filling. While it is supposed to be filled out by the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, and say things like, "pulmonary embolism" or "cardiac arrest," what fun is that? Instead, responses to "cause of death" include: "Beats me, I just found him," "Who can tell," and, "She just dropped dead in her kitchen, it was crazy." My favorite response is "physician done sent him in," which seems to have been a charmingly uneducated Southerner's way of saying, "I have no idea." 

There are a number of insane ways people have died, such as "He got bit in the head by a shark," "His car exploded, covering 100% of his body in 4th-degree burns" and a baffling one-liner that desperately needed more detail: "He fell onto a chair." How did falling onto a chair kill him? Was it a very sharp chair? Was he very old?

Some of the people on our death certificates are very old indeed, with the "age at death" field being filled out with numbers like, "417." I may be very much mistaken, but I somehow doubt anyone in the 1800's lived past 80, let alone into his 4th century. 

And then there are the answers to "occupation," with things like, "old lady" and "neighborhood drunk" being written in. And someone should explain that "sex" is asking for "male" or "female." "No" is not an appropriate response.

In any case, just be glad your name isn't Eula Beula, William James Outhouse, Irilly Yodel (say it out loud) Henry Porno, or Oglesberry Higginbottom (yes, these are all real names).

Love,

Lizzy ;)