favorite dessert—an Ooey Gooey Chewy Sunday with added chocolate sauce,” he says, “and all because I didn’t want my veggies. It was an accident. I did what any meat-loving kid would do only I didn’t mean to hold her down that long.” He shrugs and grins. “I’ve lost all my appeals but I win anyway. My last meal is an Ooey Gooey Chewy Sunday.” I also interviewed Anthony “Skinny Boy” Trafalger, a new breed of condemned man who has a short but healthy future because of proper eating habits. His new landlady expired not long after he left home to attend college. “I was spending every nickel on tuition and books,” he says. “I didn’t have anything left over to buy nutritionally suitable meals. I don’t know how many times I told her that I was vegan but every meal was meat, meat, more meat and chicken. The last straw was one morning when she served up bacon and eggs. I had requested fruit and soy yogurt. In a hunger-induced craze, I choked her by holding two strips of bacon over her mouth while I beat her with a frozen hamburger patty. It was an accident—I only meant to scare her.” Skinny Boy looked at his watch. “Tonight’s my last supper and I can’t
wait. I’ve ordered celery sticks with natural peanut butter and an all-vegetable salad with olives topped off with a glass of lemon water for dessert. I’m sorry for what I done but it was almost worth it to get a decent meal.” Perhaps it’s time to examine the policy that allows prisoners who are about to be executed to order their last meal. It’s clear that, unlike yesteryear, most of these meals violate the rules of healthy eating and have no rehabilitative effect whatsoever. It’s also clear that no recently executed prisoner has ever risen from the dead. Perhaps diet is to blame. There is also evidence that some homicides are committed in order for the perpetrator to eat to his heart’s content on his final night. Is it really necessary for taxpayers to foot the bill for a convict’s last Big Mac? (Ed. Note: Neil is the author of Tuckahoe Slidebottle (Thistledown Press) which was a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Humor Award and the Howard O’Hagen Short Fiction Award.) Neil McKinnon
Saw you in the Ojo 21