I’ve been reading a lot about guys on death row. I don’t have any strong political feelings about anything. Mostly I just read about what they get for the last meal and what they have to say for their last words.. I find their choices fascinating.
In some states if you get a last minute stay of execution from the governor more than once on the third try you don’t get a special last meal. That seems petty to me. It’s not their fault. It’s not like they asked not to die.
It’s sad, but a lot of guys just ask for McDonald’s. They have years alone in their cell and they can’t imagine anything better than chicken McNuggets. At the very least they should splurge and go for those fancy new Chicken Select Strips they sell now. If you’re going to die in a few hours you might as well live it up while you have the chance. Hell, even ask for barbeque AND honey mustard dipping sauce – live a little .
By far, the most popular thing the condemned ask for is onion rings. Almost half of the guys I read about ordered them. This is odd, I think, because not many places seem to still have them on their menus anymore. But for some reason murders can’t get enough of them. Maybe the Onion Ring Advisory Board advertises heavily on death row with big adds for onion rings in every cell. Either that, or it’s a word of mouth thing – like maybe when they haul the convict down the last mile he’ll scream out “Hey guy, try the rings, they’re delicious!” *
Dr Pepper is a lot more popular than Coke. Dr pepper should work that into their ads – something like
I’ve yet to find any condemned man who requested a kosher last meal.
My favorite last meal I read about was from a guy who just asked for a bunch of olives with the pit still inside them. He said he asked for it so that one day an olive tree, the symbol of peace, would grow on his grave. Ahh.. . Isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard in your whole life? Unfortunately he apparently didn’t think about how the seed would be able to manage to get out of his coffin. Or the fact that that the seed would be buried much too deep to have a chance. Or that the odds that a seed could germinate in your gut after you’ve been through an autopsy and embalming must be VERY low . Still, it’s an awfully cute idea – you have to give him credit for that.
When it comes to last words, Black and Hispanic murderers are much more verbose than their white peers. I’m not sure what sociological implications we can draw from this, but it’s true anyway .
Most people’s last words are very predictable and boring. They get one last chance to say something to an audience that will remember what you say for the rest of their lives and they waste it. No imagination at all.
Almost without exception they mention God, Heaven, Jesus or Allah. I’ve yet to find anyone who even mentions Hell.
A lot of guys point out that “if I was wrong to kill someone, it’s just as wrong for you to kill me!” It’s a decent point, but you would think they would ask around to make sure the guy that went before them didn’t already say it first. It would be like going on stage after Jeff Foxworthy and pointing out different ways that people can tell if they’re a redneck or not. The point already been made. They’re aware.
Just about everyone runs off a list of people they want to thank before they die. It’s like they think they just won a Grammy instead being killed. They say stuff like “I want to thank my Mom, and all my friends in cell block C and a special thank you to the three little girls I raped and murdered – if it wasn’t for you none of this would’ve happened.”.
I don’t reckon I got no reason to kill nobody. But if I ever do, and I get the death penalty, I would be a lot more creative. I think I’d just tell a long boring story that has nothing to do with what’s going on. Make everyone wonder about it.
My last words if I ever get executed:
Where I used to work we normally would we get our paychecks on Thursday, and I would get it cashed during my lunch break, but one Thursday the people in payroll didn’t get their stuff done in time so the main office in North Brunswick didn’t mail the checks until Friday. We all had to wait.
Since I was expecting a check I didn’t bring any money to eat on. I only
had two dollars and twenty-five cents in change that I got out of the ashtray
in my car.
When I tried to get a little pack of beef jerky out of the vending machine for
$1.25, it got stuck on the coil.
Luckily, when that happens in a modern vending machine it’s not a bad thing. They have a motion sensor at the bottom. When nothing passes in front of it for five seconds it pushes another one through.
When it did that, it knocked the first one loose too, so I got a free pack of beef jerky.
My glee was short lived, however.
On my second break I took the remaining dollar and tried to buy a coke, but it took my money. And the coke machine isn’t nearly as advanced as the machine hat has the beef jerky in it , so I was out of luck.
I just went to my car to listen to the radio for the rest of the break. While I
was digging around The backseat looking for something to read, I found a box of pudding cups I had bought on Tuesday and forgot about. They were warm, of course, but pudding is still pretty good even if it is warm.
So everything worked out okay, and I was still ahead a quarter thanks to the
bonus beef jerky.
Then when I got home I watched an old rerun of MASH. This happened in the summer, like I said, but they don’t match up the reruns to the actual current season- sometimes you get a Christmas episode in July.
The episode I saw that night wasn’t a Christmas show, but it was set in the winter. It was the one where Hawkeye’s dad sent him some long thermal underwear and everyone is jealous of them and tries to trade for them. Because, I guess, when you’re in a war you don’t mind wearing underwear that some other dude was wearing like six seconds before.
Hawkeye’s tent-mate – I can’t remember if it was Trapper or BJ – was sick so Hawkeye felt sorry for him and gave the underwear to him. Then he lost them in a card game to Radar. Radar traded them to the cook for a rack of lamb. Then Frank got them from the cook…and so on like that. At the end of the episode just about everyone had traded for them until they finally ended up back with Hawkeye. …Wait, it must have been a “Trapper” episode because Frank Burns was still there! When BJ showed up Winchester took Frank’s place. So it must have been Trapper.
That’s all, warden. I’m ready now. Be sure and tip the wait staff.
* I was going to change that line – “Hey guy, try the rings, they’re delicious!” to “Hey guy, try the rings, they’re to die for!”, but I decided that was too corny and cutesy. But I want you all to know that I was aware the joke could have been made.
