From: dmccart@gomez.intel.com (D. J. McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Death's Gender
Organization: Funky Groovy Channel 27
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 21:51:06 GMT

chaos wrote:
>> Big Al writes:
>> Who wants to have sex with Death, anyway?
> i can't think of a soul, actually.
> but i'm quite sure you'd have to have a date with Death, first.


                             A DATE WITH DEATH
                             =================

	A slight chill was in the air as I pulled the car over to the
	curb in front of Death's house.  I dreaded driving this heap of
	rust, but it would have to do until my old Camaro was back from
	the shop.  I reached over to the flowers on the passenger seat
	(carnations; lilies would have been way too cliche'), slid out
	of the car, shut the door, and walked up the path to Death's door.

	"Ding-dong."  The doorbell had a far too pleasant tone to it,
	considering whose house it was attached to.  Something bounded
	down the steps inside, stopped at the front door, and unlatched
	it.  A smallish, freckled girl in her early teens, not unlike a
	post-pubescent Punky Brewster, started back at me.  "Hi!" she
	said, far too exuberantly.  "You must be Dee's blind date.
	Come on in, and have a seat on the couch."

	"DEE!  YOUR DATE'S HERE!  HE'S NOT AS CUTE AS THE LAST ONE!"
	she screamed up the stairs.  Swell, I thought, I'm being ranked
	by Death's younger sister.  I took a seat and waited.  There
	was a pile of mail on the coffee table.  I couldn't help but
	look at the addresses.

	THE POCALYPSE FAMILY - some sort of bill, it looked like.
	MR. WAR A. POCALYPSE OR CURRENT RESIDENT: YOU MAY ALREADY BE A
		WINNER! - Ed McMahon misses nobody, I see.
	Pesty Pocalypse - written in teenage-girl scrawl from some summer
		camp in Minnesota.
	Mrs. Famine Pocalypse - an issue of Better Homes and Gardens.
		Somehow, here, it just made *sense*.
	

	Just then Death came down the steps.  She was gorgeous.  Black
	satin strapless dress, slicked-back golden-brown hair tied up
	in a bun, one of those gold necklaces that you add pearls to as
	you save up money (or get people to buy for you; she had three),
	and just slightly too much makeup.

	Uh oh.  "You do realize that we're going to a demolition derby,
	don't you?" I asked her.

	Idiot.  Next time say hello first.

	"Sure do.  Wouldn't miss it.  I always dress up for demolition
	derbies; gets me noticed.  Those for me?" she said and asked,
	pointing at the bouquet I still held.

	"What?  Oh.  Yeah," I said, handing them over to her.

	"How sweet.  Pesty - make yourself useful and put these in a
	vase, would you please?" Death asked of the giggling half-face
	not very well hidden around the corner of the room.

	The little girl skipped into the room, grabbed the carnations
	from Death's hand - "Hey, be careful with those!" - and bounded
	off towards the kitchen.

	"Well?  Shall we?" Death asked, extending her elbow for me to
	escort her with.  Pretty classy, for someone so short on words.
	Pretty classy, for Death.

	We got to the car.  I opened the door for her, walked around to
	the other side, got in, started her up, and eventually,
	wordlessly, got onto the highway.


	"Nice car.  What is it?"  Death asked, trying to make small talk.
	Death is not good at small talk.

	"Nice?  You've got to be kidding.  It's my folk's old Pinto.
	It sucks," I replied, instantly regretting my choice of words.

	"Oh, I don't know... it's perfect for what I have in mind,"
	Death smiled suggestively.

	"Really now," I said as innocently as I could.  "And just what
	might that be?" I continued as I noticed the headlights of the
	Audi behind me for the first time.


--
D. J. McCarthy <dmccart@gomez.intel.com>
"Whenever you come across something you don't understand, just think up an
 answer that SOUNDS as if it might work and forget about it."
                                      --Katrina Hill, alt.tv.red-dwarf, 8/19/92