DAVID BRAMER
WP Copy Editor
I'm from the "Rage, Rage into the Night" school of dying. Death isn't separating egg yolks and whites, people. Your body's headed one way, your soul another. It's a divorce that deserves to be messy. ... But face it: When you're a dead man walking, outrage only takes you so far. You might start out roaring, but you're gonna end up blubbering. The truth is, to die right (fry right?) you need to be fearless. You can't just be square with the idea of dying, execution has to sound absolutely optimal.
Not doable? Think, dubious reader, you've been there. You were 19. It was a party. You drank in a way sane people don't drink — copious amounts of Jack Daniels, Ouzo and cheap wine — and ate stuff that sane people don't eat, not in combination anyway. Kielbasa and fried pork rinds, jelly donuts. Stuff with due dates long past due. Something almost raw. Something intermittently blue. You smoked like a pig on a spit. Your footing passed from merely quirky to delusional (the Earth really does spin! Gravity works!), and your words came out like bad dubs. You did things that were out of character until some smirking Good Samaritan dragged you to your home toilet, on the waters of which you spent the night pitching in a leaky boat. You retched, you prayed to the Ultimate Executioner: "Die me, Lord! Pull the trigger! Just this once "
What would my last meal be? Do you really have to ask?
KELLI K
WP Associate Editor/Operations
If I'm sitting on Death Row, obviously I did something to deserve it, and thus don't deserve some spectacular last meal. But no one said life's fair (I'm on Death Row, man), so here we go.
First, select friends and all 100-some-odd family members would join me for dinner. There'll be puke buckets for a few (don't ask), and individual ashtrays for all the smokers. We'd toast my impending death with hard cider, Captain Morgan and Diet Coke, and tequila.
After drinks, we'd enjoy chorizo fuendido from Red Mesa, lovely pitas and tzatziki from Acropolis, and some chips and queso from Estela's Mexican Restaurant. Why not throw in some of my mom's Philadelphia Cream Cheese dip and a few bags of scoop-size Frito's. The liquor would continue to flow.
Our main course would consist of filet mignon and chicken stir-fry from Arigato's Japanese Steakhouse, including plenty of that restaurant's fat-laden Goody Goody sauce. Mom's cabbage rolls would be on the menu, along with her luscious beef roast surrounded by browned potatoes, baby carrots and a vat of gravy, and we'd also need several large mushroom-and-pepperoni pies from Sally O'Neil's Pizza Hotline. Throw in a few wraps from Ciccio and Tony's for the health conscious who aren't dying the next day. More liquor.
For dessert, we must have baklava, also from Acropolis, a chocolate cake lovingly made by WP co-worker Amanda Cramer, and an array of Little Debbie snack cakes.
After dinner, we'd continue smoking until the guest of honor herself was smoking. Literally.
COOPER CRUZ
WP Events Editor
The chemically engineered tastes of McDonalds have always comforted me.
Growing up, whenever I was sick, my mom would reward me for good behavior at the doctor's office by spinning through the McDonalds drive-thru on our way home. My order was always an orange drink and large fries.
The Hi-C orange flavor in the drink is utterly unlike the taste of fresh-squeezed orange juice, but it's an adequate facsimile, sweet and delicious coming up through a straw. And the fries (oh, lovely amalgam of air, vegetable oil and potato flour deep-fried and dusted with salt!) offer instant hand-to-mouth gratification as potent as beer to a drunk.