Local Couple Dies in Area Home
I.
The
Assignment
“Kirk! Get in here!” bellowed my editor, Al
Caprietta. I had barely gulped down that
burnt-sienna solvent that passed for coffee at the Weekly Picayune
Shopper. I staggered down the hall to
his office. Al is one of those
old-school types whom you could see wearing a pushed-back fedora with a press
pass in it, wearing a rumpled brown suit and hollering for a copy boy. We come from different generations, but after
I was laid off from the public relations department at the stapler plant (not
an easy job; kids are forever stapling their pinkies to desks, and the lawsuits
are plentiful), he was the only one who took a chance on me and gave me a job
as a features reporter.
“Whatta ya got,
boss?”
“Lester, I need you
to go out to a home out on Route 10. I
got a tip about a couple of deaths, and you know… .”
“Yeah, I know. If it bleeds, it leads.”
I hadn’t been exactly
winning any Pulitzers since getting hired last year, and so of course I jumped
at it. I fired up the Yugo (not the
chick magnet the salesman had suggested) and headed out to interview Effie
Scheisskopf. Little did I know.
II.
The
Interview
“I still don’t like
to talk about it.”
Despite the passage
of what should have been a healing few days, Effie Scheisskopf was near tears
when she opened the door of her Fleetwood double-wide Monteverde (one of their
more modest models). She beckoned me in,
steered me to a plastic-covered floral divan, and offered me a Sanka.
“Tell me in your own
words what happened,” I prompted. She
nodded and collected herself; this was her first time appearing in a newspaper
since she was born in 1953, and she wasn’t about to blow her chance.
“Oh, Mr. Kirk. Sorry.
It’s just that…” She trailed off, but I urged her to continue. She drew a deep breath.
“So, it was like any
ordinary Monday. Laundry day; you
know? I had a huge armful of clothes—mostly
my housecoats--when I entered the laundry nook.
I was able to look over the clothes, and what I saw made me drop them
all over the floor. There was a huge
pool of water everywhere. I rushed over
to the washer to try to see what the matter was but…”
Now, she was really
crying for real. I laid a consoling hand
on her fleshy arm.
“Shhh. Go Ahead.
Take your time. Do you want my
Sanka?”
“The washer seemed,
well, dead. I twisted the dial to see if
it would start, and the grinding noise I heard, well, sir, it made my blood run
cold like that time I had to run Walter over to the ER after he ate 3 whole
cans of Vienna Sausages. I told him time
and time again…”
“Mrs. Scheisskopf,
please.”
“I know, I know, I
know. So, I turned the knob all the way
to turn it off. The horrible noise
stopped, but I knew in my heart that she was gone. And the dryer? Dead.
Turned the knob. Nothing. It was
like he knew it was their time and didn’t want to go on living. You’ve heard of that; haven’t you?”
“Now, I’ve got to buy
one of those slutty-looking maroon sets from Korea. They…don’t make them in America anymore, you
know...,” she said, bitterly.
I took a couple of photos. At the door, Mrs. Scheisskopf grasped my arm.
“Mr. Kirk? Could you do something for us? It would mean so much if you would write an
obituary. Me, I’m not so good at words,
and Walter, well, he barely passed high school English.”
An obituary? For a washer/dryer? I could already hear Caprietta’s snarl
resounding down the hall. Imagine my surprise,
then, when he not only agreed to it, but, well, gushed about how this might
really pick up circulation in what had been a slow month, in which the most
exciting story told the tale of an ant farm spill out in Tarriffville. I sat down at my battered Formica desk and
got to work.
III The Obituary
“It is with a heavy
heart that Walter and Effie Scheisskopf announce the joint passing, after a
long illness, of their husband-and-wife Whirlpool Heavy Duty Plus washer and
dryer, pictured below. Together for
about 25 years, they tirelessly washed and dried clothes through some of the
most turbulent moments of our history, including the Clinton Impeachment, 9/11,
the controversial 2000 presidential election, the Iraq war and the rise of the
Kardashians.
Very much a product
of their times, the husband-and-wife duo were finished in a heavy white enamel,
with a frankly gross beige plastic trim featuring exposed screw heads and
rotary dials, to accomplish their duties. In her later years, the washer
endured an ailment which permitted clothes only to be washed using the “Normal”
cycle at 9 minutes. For his part, the
husband dryer soldiered on and tended to his duties, which included twisting
towels and clothes into a Gordian knot of woven frustration. This, despite
suffering a debilitating injury to his upper lint trap door, which required a
prosthetic wood panel (see picture). He carried on nonetheless with the sort of
quiet dignity you’d hope to see in today’s appliances, but which is hard to
find.
As the years
progressed, however, the Whirlpool family was unable to keep up with the
times. Digital controls, stainless steel
tubs and colored finishes overtook them, and the Schiesskopfs were left with no
alternative but to put them out to pasture.
The Whirlpool couple
are survived by a large family of small appliances, including a Water-Pic, a
Cuisinart ice cream maker, a humidifier and a bread machine (not pictured). One
additional illegitimate child, a vibrator, has not been heard from for some
years. In lieu of flowers, the
Scheisskopfs ask that well-wishers contribute to The Laundry Without Borders
Fund, which provides modern laundry equipment to the poor from abroad.”
III.
The
Upshot
I guess Caprietta is
the editor for a reason. After we
published the obit, circulation skyrocketed, with over 230 copies flying off
the local newspaper boxes. I started
getting recognized in cafeterias and general stores. But perhaps the human element is the best. Mrs. Scheisskopf sent me a picture of Walter
and her, at Best Buy, proudly beaming in front of a maroon washer/dryer
combo. It didn’t look slutty at all.
Peter Rustin
Peter
Rustin and his wife Leslie recently moved from Los Angeles to Peter’s native Connecticut,
with their three rather intelligent cats. Peter is an attorney practicing
remotely with his firm in Los Angeles. He plays guitar badly and drums
decently. He has been published in the Arboreal Literary Journal.