Man's Death Offset By His Fantastic Accumulation Of Possessions
By Josh Righter

Friends and family initially gathered to mourn the sudden death of Tim Swartz, a 52 year-old executive who suffered a rare-but-deadly simultaneous heart attack, stroke, and liver failure, but ended up celebrating when they realized just how much wealth and "cool things" Swartz had accumulated over the years.

"Yes, it's sad in some context that his physical, biological life can't continue," said Swartz's delighted brother Sam, "but the important thing here is that all of this awesome shit will live on forever, or at least until things like plastic and metal begin to break down and wear out."

"Oh, Timmy, I'm so proud of you," said Swartz's mother, patting her son's pallid corpse and playing with his $7,000 pachinko machine. "You did what every mother dreams for her son: you died with lots of stuff by your side."

At the funeral, a priest gave a rousing tribute to Swartz's life and things.

"And when the Lord's sheep Timothy returns unto him, the Lord will see him and welcome him, and notice that his 60" plasma TV with HDMI inputs was totally sweet," the priest intoned. "I spoke to many members of the family before coming up here today, and you all had some very cherished, lovely memories of Tim's things. Hold on to these memories and keep them dear to your heart, and hopefully, you will get the thing you're thinking of at the will reading after the ceremonies."

Swartz's ghost, so moved by the loving tribute to how he spent his money, even made a brief appearance at the service, warning everyone not to lean on his car or they'd scratch it.

The dearly departed's arsenal of death-defying material goods includes a five bedroom mansion, the team of housekeepers he hired to keep the four bedrooms that he never used clean, a stunning collection of vinyl albums never listened to in order to preserve their freshness, a golden scepter, and a large, expensive, penis-shaped car. By request of his family, the local newspaper ran his obituary as simply an exhaustive catalogue of his fabulous possessions.

"Of one thing, we can be sure," announced father Alan Swartz at the funeral reception. "Whatever the reason is for Tim's sudden heart attack, stroke, and liver failure, he obviously died a very happy man."

In fact, Swartz's death marks what some analysts are calling a trend in the U.S.: dying relatively young, but in luxurious circumstances.

"With retirement looking more and more like it will be renamed 'secondjobment', the idea of sliding peacefully into one's golden years just isn't realistic anymore," said one important man. "More and more people are realizing that the golden years may be happening as we speak, and that it would be a shame to come out of them without having died."

The analyst then accepted payment for his contributions, then shot himself in the face.

But for those without the diverse portfolio of entertaining possessions of Tim Swartz, despair should not be felt just yet; many poor people like to entertain the notion that one can be happy without much money.

"Some folks might say I'd be happier and healthier eating something different than ramen noodles every night, but they don't know me," scoffed one poor bastard. "They're all high and mighty, but inside, they're healthy and dead. I'd rather be rotting and in horrible pain and alive."

However, that, says Swartz's family, is exactly the point.

"Yes, he's dead," said wife Stella Swartz. "And now we have all of these things as his legacy. This is why no poor person will ever be remembered by history: how can you make your mark without having bought anything?"

Josh Righter is an editor at enduringvision.com.