Sometimes trite is good. 'Cause I want to say, "Lucky bitch got morphine and a flat-screen TV. Fuckers wouldn't give us any goddamn morphine. We asked." They even make this oral morphine that you just sort of swab inside your mouth, it would've been totally easy to use. But no sharesies. Bastards.

I can handle "How are you?" now, though at the beginning I tended too much toward the inappropriate frankness: "Okay. I got some really good pills, so I don't wake up screaming so much," or a cryptic "This site has gone five days without a fatality," to a perfectly blameless Walgreen's clerk who only wanted me to take my lightbulbs and leave.

I fear the inevitable "How's your Mom?" "Dead." And I know it'll happen.