In March of 1950, Sam Iam, the massively wealthy inventor of green eggs, who sold such volume every St. Patrick’s Day that he could afford not to work the rest of the year, claimed to have gotten Counted Sorrows from a leprechaun, which is an obvious and despicable lie. The truth of his demise, however, is well known: He was found inexplicably emulsified and smeared across the ceiling of the model-train room in his mansion.
You see, I am sure, that a tiresome pattern has developed. As dreadful as these deaths may be, and in spite of the fact that they provide the gruesome trail of frightful destruction that I promised you, they would have a numbing, not to say paralyzing, not to say coma-inducing effect on you if I were to recount the rest of them in the detail that I have heretofore provided. Consequently, I will convey you through the next half century of tragedy and mayhem in a more expeditious style.
The following people came into possession of Counted Sorrows without the slightest suspicion that the consequence of ownership was considerably more serious than, say, the minimum purchase obligation imposed on members by the Literary Guild, an organization that can be plenty tough when compelling you to purchase the agreed-upon number of books, but that has never forced a recalcitrant member to swallow himself.
1952. Vinnie “The Velociraptor” Taliferio, notorious Mafia pet nanny, was dandling Don Vita Corleone’s cherished toy poodle on his knee, at the Don’s birthday party, when his head exploded. Other guests, thinking that this was meant to be a hit on the Godfather himself, drew their weapons and killed eight innocent waiters. Well, seven were innocent, actually; the eighth was only moonlighting as a waiter and really wanted to be a film-studio executive.
1954. Dr. Farn Lannaman, highly skilled surgeon and pioneer of nose-hair transplants, dropped his surgical tools and spun himself into butter in the middle of refurbishing the nearly bat d nostrils of the great actor, James Cagney.
1955. The same year that he perished, Nestor Nada, of Tarzana, California, invented the shrub-and-tree blower, which preceded the gasoline-powered leaf blower by about two decades. The shrub-and-tree blower featured an early version of the jet engine, powered by nuclear fusion, and was meant to be a final solution to the annoyance of landscape droppings, tearing out all greenery by the roots and blowing it into the next county. Nestor was found emulsified and smeared on the ceiling of a public restroom in a casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, and it pains me to say that his death was celebrated by the usual environmentalist extremists who think trees are good.
1956. Jimmy Crackcorn, an itinerant gerbil groomer, spun himself into butter, then past butter, finally coming to a halt when he was a soft cheese.
1957. Jack Benimble. University professor and well-regarded Spam sculptor. Head exploded.
1959. Jack Bequick. Buttermaker. Turned to butter. Some irony in this one.
1962. Lars Ferndahl. Advance scout for a large extraterrestrial invasion force of intelligent giant insects from Andromeda, disguised as human. Head exploded, body continued to move for nine minutes.
1965. Dr. Lee Sham. Practiced proctology by acupuncture, with
many Hollywood stars on his patient list. Head exploded.
1966. Bob Roberts. Fob fabricator. Head exploded.
1968. Peter Piper. Pickle packer. Ceiling smear.
1969. Peter Peter Pumpkineater. Pumpkin eater. Smeared on the dome of his pumpkin-shell living room.
1971. Bllly-Bob Beauregard Bodeen. Professional Southern eccentric. Swallowed himself, but started with his left hand instead of his tongue, pausing twice to request another double side order of grits.
1973. Unidentified hobo. Panhandler. Spun himself into Ripple marmalade.
1976. J. Chandler Witherspoon. Singularly vicious book critic. Bludgeoned, strangled, stabbed, shot forty-seven times, hacked, and immolated. This is the only Counted Sorrows case of its kind, and none of the scholars in this field knows quite what to make of it.
1977. Moses Posey. Saintly minister. He anticipated his fate and made suitable arrangements for the distribution of his remains: He spun himself into butter and on Thanksgiving, at his church-operated soup kitchen, was served atop 900 mounds of mashed potatoes with 900 turkey dinners for the indigent.
1979. J. Chandler Witherspoon. Singularly vicious book critic. His grave was found excavated, his casket open. His already battered, burned, and thoroughly punctured remains had been scattered on the cemetery grass, saturated with sulfuric acid, mixed with thousands of cloves of garlic, and covered with cow dung. Counted Sorrows scholars agree that this is the only known case in which the book’s virulent curse continued to act upon one of its pathetic owners even after he was dead.