There was an odd story about a pet dog on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal isn't written for dog lovers. It's aimed at that special, ultra-selfish breed who adore wealth over persons. That's why the Journal article wasn't really about the dog, but about how to make "huge profits" from freeze-drying your neighbor's dead Fido. The article answered essential questions about protecting the investment which is all too often squandered on pets which won't survive to be willed to the greedy grandkids. According to the Journal, Itchy, the dog, got squashed into road-kill. Not to worry, Itchy's owner, a woman with more money than good sense and a ghoulish fascination with the dead, didn't want to loose her investment. A very macabre pet shop had the solution: freeze-dry Itchy! For two thousand bucks the guy propped up the road-kill into a comely pose, dried it out for a couple months and gave the cadaver the full freeze-dry treatment. A bicycle pump for inflation, a couple coats of shellac, a couple glass eyes to replace the crumbling cinders and, presto, Itchy was a doorstop in his owner's bedroom. The shrewd investor got to see and appreciate her investment each morning when she awoke. A few swipes with the duster and Itchy would be a valued candidate for Antiques Roadshow in a few decades provided the cat didn't gnaw off any anatomical details and the humidity didn't get too high. Olga (most often called "Ugly") Remmy was not the kind of woman to read the Wall Street Journal, in fact, reading or writing of any kind were a stretch for her. She was what we politely call "challenged." Olga Remmy didn't like men so she became a prison guard. There wasn't much else she was suited to be. The job didn't require much reading or writing and it offered the generous benefit of free-style tormenting of male prisoners. Olga Remmy had a sister, Penny (more often called "Petty") who was also challenged. She, too, was an old maid and she too went to work in a prison. Her appearance wasn't nearly as alarming as Olga's, but her personality was rusty steel wool. The state paid the Remmy sisters ("Ugly and Petty" ever since highschool) a lot of money to abuse prisoners. Who could ask for anything better? They needed the money. They had expensive habits of questionable legality. The Remmy sisters had a mother. They didn't like her. She didn't like them. Nobody much liked them. They also had a father. They liked him even less than they liked their mother. He was worse than a man, he was a sickly old man. That had been bad enough, but, in April, old George Remmy died. That was going to cost money! Olga was all for trussing up old George in newspapers and dropping him into the dumpster behind the Giant store. Chances are that nobody would miss him. Nobody much cares about sickly old fathers. They hadn't been feeding him much for the last few months of his life, so he was frail enough that it wouldn't be any trouble for the brawny sisters to tie him over the fender of the Chevy and slip him under the decaying cabbage in the Giant's dumpster. It wasn't likely that anyone would ever notice. Penny, the younger of the sisters and the less blonde of the pair, didn't much like the dumpster solution. She figured that they ought to be able to make a buck on their old-man. With Olga's help, she folded father George's emaciated corpse up into the freezer. They'd keep him on ice until they could search around for a buyer. There was so much media banter about organ transplants that Penny thought there must be some place where dead-George could be carved into marketable bits, kind of like an automobile chop-shop breaks down stolen cars into resalable parts. The guy might be old, but there must be some parts of him that somebody'd be willing to pay for, an eyeball or a kidney, maybe. Maybe they could peel off their old father's skin to patch up a rich burn victim. Together the Remmy sisters agreed that if there was anybody who would know about a chop-shop for dead old-men, it would be Kenny Lingfellow, a coworker more often called "Slippery." The Remmy sisters didn't like Slippery. He was a man. He was an ugly, dwarfish troll of a man who acted more like a dyke than a dick. He was called "Slippery" not because he was clever, but because he chewed tobacco. He was a sloppy spitter. Olga Remmy chewed tobacco, too, but she had the good manners not to leave slippery brown puddles in her wake. Slippery Lingfellow was a snoop who stole things from the convicts. It put him wise to a lot of useful information. From safe crackers to drug dealers, Slippery knew how to benefit from the underworld, but he claimed not to know of any chop-shops for recycling body organs. Olga bribed him with a gallon of cheap wine and insisted that he should try to find a butcher who would be able to market the remains of dear-old dead-dad. She didn't want to wait too long for fear that George would get freezer burn. Who'd want to buy a freezer burned lung or liver? On the promise of a case of beer, Kenny Lingfellow agreed to inspect the merchandise. George's pathetic, naked cadaver was blue and frozen solid. It was difficult to pry the doubled-up old-man up out of the freezer for Slippery to evaluate his parts potential. One look at the withered remains convinced Lingfellow the old-man was far too scrawny to be of any use as replacement components. His difficult life and the abuse from his daughters and wife during his last years had reduced George to an emaciated lump of gristle. Grumbling at the delay and expense, the Remmy sisters angrily stuffed their father's neatly folded body back into the Frigidaire, Maybe it would have to be the Giant dumpster after all. Under intimidation from the shrill Olga Remmy brandishing a swordfish steak, Officer Lingfellow (prison guards are called officer as a kind of inside joke) agreed to check with the famous Luther Logan. He would surely have an answer. By and large, prisoners are a pretty creative and ingenious species. On a whole, they are far more knowledgeable than the prison staff. That was certainly the case with Luther Logan. He was universally known as "Loaded" Logan because he'd make his fortune by investing the pennies from his prison pay into the stock market. Loaded was exactly the kind of person who read the Wall Street Journal, but he wasn't the kind of an inmate who fraternized with riffraff like Slippery Lingfellow or any other guard, for that matter. There are, you realize, some persons that neither snakes and criminals will endure. Slippery and the Remmy sisters weren't much, but, like all prison administrators, they were bullies. They ruthlessly raided Loaded's prison cell. They stole his brand new sneakers, his underwear, his legal papers, his books and even his Wall Street Journals. When Slippery walked off with Loaded's family photos, the inmate acknowledged defeat. He agreed to cooperate with the officers. Cornered in his tiny cell, he listened to Olga Remmy, her straggly blonde mop a bewildering muddle, shrilly explain what she wanted: a way to make a few dollars from dear-old dead-George. It didn't matter what. She never liked him anyway. Not content with one explanation, Penny Remmy elaborated, going into detail about how she visualized that George could easily be dissected into retailable chunks so that they would make a tidy profit instead of having to pay for a casket and a funeral and all the rest. Slippery didn't say much. He was reading Loaded's bankbook. He wanted to know if the numbers in the bankbook with all those digits were legit. With a grin of satisfaction, Loaded burst the guards' bubble, You can't sell organs after a body had been frozen. The organs are dead, just so much meat. Olga wondered if there was any possibility of selling dad as meat. Don't dogs and cats have to be fed, too? There was no two ways about it, Loaded didn't like Olga Remmy, no sir, not one bit. But he had some ideas. If the guards returned his property, especially his photos and legal papers, he'd give the old maids a solution to their dilemma: freeze-dry pop like so much instant coffee! The sisters didn't see any profit in the old-man if he was frozen. Wasn't he frozen already? Loaded explained to them about the Journal story of Itchy the dog. Freeze-drying, he suggested would save on embalming and funeral expenses. But, freeze-drying would preserve their father's body like a piece of sculpture. The Remmy sisters hadn't wanted George around when he was alive. They surely didn't want him lingering around after he was dead. They wanted rid of him. They didn't like him. He didn't like them. They wanted a profit. They had expensive habits, you understand. Loaded said that he could understand that dad hadn't liked them. He went on to suggest that a nicely lacquered cadaver, tastefully dudded up in tights or just a fedora and bolo tie would be a unique and readily saleable carnival attraction, or a curiosity for mall-openings: "Come see freeze-dried George. Parental discretion advised!" Olga liked the idea. Penny was less certain. Slippery asked if six digits made a million dollars or just a hundred thousand. So, Ugly and Petty had an answer, but it was a mere idea. How do two intellectually and socially challenged female prison guards from rustic Pennsylvania, turn a frozen father into a profitable freeze-dried George? It seemed like an ideal project for greedy daughters with a flair for do-it-yourself. There were no books in the craft shop on freeze-drying anything, not even flowers. That was just as well. The Remmy sisters had problems with reading. But, Penny Remmy thought that freeze-drying had to be pretty simple. It was done every day with all sorts of ordinary foods. She had Loaded Logan read the Wall Street Journal article to her. Some of it was over her head, but she got the part about positioning Itchy into a natural pose. George wasn't road-kill, but Penny and Olga could do the posing part easily enough. They'd do that first, worrying about the freeze-drying later on. They dragged George in to the bathtub to thaw. It took the best part of two days. He'd started to smell by the time they flopped the bony body up onto the kitchen table. He was slippery and slimy. They argued a lot about what pose would be best. Olga wanted him sitting sedately in a chair. Penny want him standing up so that there would be more of an attraction for mall-openings, fairs and things like that. Mother Remmy, she become involved in the project hoping to get a cut of the take, thought her dead husband should be posed in a reclining position, head supported on his crooked arm. Olga's sitting design finally won the argument, but it was easier said than done. Dead-George was as limp and (dare I say it) lifeless as a dead body. The three women carefully positioned him only to have first the head nod and then the arms fold and legs buckle. They were going to use duct tape to secure him to the chair, but it ripped out his hair. They settled on tying him up with lengths of linen torn from bed sheets. They seldom bothered using sheets on their beds anyhow. They would just have had to get Undressed. It took hours and the assistance of scrap lumber that the old-man had unwittingly kept in his workshop, but at last, a naked, sunken chest George was bound into anything but a natural looking posture on his rickety desk chair, his blank eyes staring into space through a frosty haze. Laced to the chair, George was too big to be crammed back into the freezer. The old maids, with mother's guidance, wiggled in as much as would fit, head-first. They draped the rear with plastic trash bags. Olga turned up the freezer full-blast hoping that dad wouldn't spoil before they'd solved the freeze-drying step. If anything rotted, it would be out of sight in the back. The state prison (it was called a "correctional institution" so that the public couldn't guess what really happened there) where the Remmy misanthropes were employed, had to feed thousands of men everyday. It had a large, filthy kitchen operated by prisoner slave-labor under the bumbling direction of Gary Crunch, a kind of culinary overseer. Gary Crunch was the kind of guy who liked to play dress-up. He especially liked fancy uniforms and long ostrich feathers arcing from elaborate headgear. That's why he'd gotten a job in "corrections," the nifty uniforms. Sadly, they didn't let wear his boa or plumed chapeaus. To compensate, he discarded his kitchen staff's garb to dressed up in a guard's uniform with a shiny utility belt, handcuff pouch and mace. Since he was such an important fellow, he chose an elegant captain's livery. He was very dapper! Captain Crunch bought all the foods for the prison. Much of it was freeze-dried, the cheapest, lowest grades he could find. They wouldn't let him buy pet feeds. Gary resented feeding inmates. Money that could have gone to wardrobe had to be wasted on prisoner grub. Pinching pennies, as miserly as possible, he was wont to quip, "let 'm eat cake!" The Remmy sisters didn't like Captain Crunch. He was a man, burly, baritone and bald. He didn't like them, but in exchange for Aunt Tammy's hand-me-down brocade jacket, he put them in touch with Jannee Sttennett, the funny little woman who managed the Huntingdon Roots And Berries freeze-drying plant in beautiful Mount Union. Huntingdon Roots And Berries manufactured the inexpensive freeze-dried beet flakes, potato granules and parsnip/carrot powder served daily in the prison. Their instant, freeze-dried apple and endive puree was the habitual prison dessert. For each fifty-five gallon drum that Captain Crunch purchased, his perk was $125 toward his son's college fund. Mrs. Sttennett was an obnoxious, Jesus-freak of a woman, but in business matters she was coldly practical, Jesus and profits never conflicted. She liked Olga Remmy's plan to freeze-dry George. She could see a tidy fee in it. They dickered over a price and settled on thirty-five hundred dollars, cash and carry. Mrs. Sttennett's facility also recycled the spoiled milk and eggs which she sold to Captain Crunch and to the local mental hospital in five gallon pails. That equipment was only used once a week. The old maids were instructed to bring pop in on Saturday and pick him up on Monday. The proprietress guaranteed that he'd be done to a turn. The Remmy sisters were reluctant. It was a lot of money. There was no guarantee of a sale. Why not just push his slimy, decaying remains into the dumpster? When Mother Remmy agreed to chip in $1200, the girls were swayed. Following Mrs. Sttennett's instructions, they bored a hole into dad's frozen heel. On the way to deliver him to the Huntingdon Roots and Berries, the sisters stopped at the Hess station. They inflated pop to thirty-eight pounds to make a more robust and hopefully more saleable specimen. The old-man creaked a little, but puffed up like a Thanksgiving parade blimp. His frozen eyes popped out, but that wouldn't be a problem. They could be replaced with painted marbles. It was a bigger project than Mrs. Sttennett had imagined. She'd never freeze-dried an old-man before. It took a lot longer that she expected. But by Wednesday, just in time to start the next batch of rotten egg recycling, George was done. He was as crisp as toast. when they picked up their father, the old maids were surprised how little he weighed. He was brittle and coffee brown, but nothing that a little make up and a few coats of acrylic sealer couldn't solve. Instead of delaying any further, the sisters ran George right over to Muffy's, the local auto painting shop. It was with some trepidation that Muffy sprayed dead-George with clear gloss sealer. He'd never done a human body before. It was a bit unhandy spraying into all the odd nooks and crannies, like what does a painter do with toes, pry them apart? But it worked out pretty well. George looked okay, but as shiny as a new Buick. His hair, especially his body hair, got a little matted and stood up like icicles in stiff spikes. When the neatly lacquered cadaver crept out of the drying tunnel dangling naked, upside-down from a hook, the girls were hopeful that it wouldn't be long before they raked in "huge profits" like the Wall Street Journal promised. Penny who could write a little better that Olga, put an ad in the local newspaper: "Freeze-Dried George for sale for mall-openings, carnival side shows. $7500 or best offer." Some locals phoned. They thought it was a joke. One guy named Corbin, an employee at the prison, stopped by. He wanted to see what a freeze-dried man looked like. He was pretty fond of dead things. The Remmy sisters had posed George perching on his desk chair in the corner of the livingroom. Out of modesty, they arranged one of mother's old doilies on his lap. They didn't want an x-rated father. They'd pushed a couple large marbles into his blank eye sockets which gave his gaunt old face an eerie aspect. Corbin was impressed. Mrs. Remmy sold him a beer. He went away happy. By noon the next day, two more guys from the prison were around to look at freeze-dried George. Mrs. Remmy sold them beers, too. By the end of the week, Mother Remmy had made eighty dollars on beer! Olga was furious. It had been her plan, but it was mother who was making the profit. That wasn't fair. The sisters decided to charge a fee to curiosity seekers. For anyone who wanted to look at dead-dad it would cost them two bucks and two more bucks for a beer. over the next few months, most of the prison employees stopped by. The women coyly peeked under the doily. The men drank beer. Nobody felt cheated and pretty soon, the entrepreneurs had recouped their costs. They were on their way to "huge profits." The Wall Street Journal had been right! Then came the pounding on the door from the venerable Pennsylvania State Police. It was Colonel Paul "Stinky" Evanoff himself, the chief cop. He demanded to see freeze-dried George. The old maids were certain the jig was up, but Mother Remmy wouldn't let the cop in without paying the required two bucks. Colonel Evanoff inspected the dead body with the keen eye of a seasoned police officer. He carefully brushed off the dust that had settled on the hair and shoulders. When he was absolutely certain that George was indeed a modern-day mummy, a dead body, posed, freeze-dried and spray painted, he turned his attention to the suspected relatives; wife and daughters. "Excuse me," the Colonel offered. He said that alot. He was a gassy man who well deserved his appellation of Stinky. He made smells. "This is a dead person," the cop started with all the brilliant insight of a burlap bag of bolts. "It's your father, isn't it?" The Remmy girls were ready for the bust. They didn't like men and always expected the worst. Mother Remmy, by contrast liked men okay, well, at least she didn't detest them if they had a little bankroll. She confronted the chief cop. It soon became clear that Colonel Stinky coveted dead-George. The State cops had a museum. Stinky wanted to buy George for one of the exhibits. He liked the idea of a latter-day mummy. He offered ten thousand and they struck a bargain at $15,000, five thousand for each of the investors. Happily, the Remmy women acknowledged that one must always believe what one reads on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.