I attended a funeral last week. There were four of us present. Three of us work together here in the office. The fourth was the dead one. The funeral was held in the ladies' room.

Our office mascot, Nemo, had kicked the bucket. He hung in for a long time, seemingly waiting for Sally, his owner, to come back from vacation. We were happy he did that, not wanting to dispose of him without her approval and attendance. Sally tends to be overly emotional [a very conservative statement] and none of us wants to be the one trapped in her office when she cries and sobs as if the world had blown up, when in actuality, someone just didn't agree with her.

Nemo was a Siamese Beta Fighting Fish. He was reddish in color. He is now dead. He died of old age. As soon as Sally came back, he went belly up. Her wailing not withstanding, I was able to fish him out of his bowl easily. We began the funeral procession down the hall.

We gathered in the handicap stall [it's the only way all of us could fit], looked at each other solemnly and then I carefully lowered the fish net into the bowl of the toilet. He floated out slowly and settled on the bottom. I looked at Sally and Kathy, both looking appropriately sad [Sally looking worse and sobbing, of course], got the silent nod and pushed the lever.

He schwooped out of there quickly. The toilet made a horrid noise much like it was burping after a large meal. The toilets in our ladies' room leave much to be desired, such as actually flushing everything the first time you flush. Usually, you have to grab an extra handful of toilet paper and use it to "encourage" the stuff in the bowl to find the hole out of there. It's easier than it sounds, but is still an extra step I'd rather not have to continue to perform. Luckily, I didn't have to perform this with Nemo's departure.