ISDP: Tweets from Beyond

Here in our gloomy garret atop FirstNerve Manor we are thankful for technology: for the electric space heater, the mercury-filled environmental light bulb, and the electronic whisper of our neighbor’s WiFi. With the latter we roam the world as a spectral presence, collecting the sad, often bizarre, incidents that fill our monthly offering of I Smell Dead People. Other people, we are told, use consumer electronics to stay in constant touch with their friends via something called Social Media. (Not us. Our friends prefer to leave messages wrapped in dry leaves tied with twine to the broken fence post.)

If it is true that the younger set maintain nonstop contact with acquaintances all over the globe, then we are unable to explain how a junior at the University of Chicago became the subject of this headline:

Foul smell leads to discovery of body in dorm room

How is that possible in the age of Facebook and Twitter?

No one noticed that 20-year-old Nicholas Barnes hadn’t been out of his room or at class for quite a while. But when others in his dorm began to smell something foul they alerted school officials who found Barnes face down on the floor of his room.

“Quite a while,” it turns out, was something on the order of eight days.

There’s been a lot of buzz recently about scent attachments for the iPhone. We think there’s a need for an I Smell Dead People app that emits a foul odor whenever one of your tweeps hasn’t tweeted you in . . . quite a while.

The only other item to report on this freezing March evening comes from Decatur, Alabama. It is a rather singular instance: it does not qualify as ISDP (since odor was not a factor in the discovery of the deceased) and yet it does qualify for the Norman Bates Award™.

Police: 78-Year-Old Woman Found Living At Home With Dead Husband For A Month

The body of Jesse Kirby, 76, was discovered Friday afternoon in his bed when police went to the home to check on the couple, said Morgan County Coroner Jeff Chunn. Living inside the house was his wife, Doris Kirby, 78, who was hospitalized after the discovery.

It appears that Mr. Kirby died of natural causes, while his wife suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. Which, we note, is often associated with an impaired sense of smell.

See you next month. Don’t forget.