Dazed and Confused: An Obit

March 17, 2042
The Denver Post

Debbie / Deb / Deborah (take your pick, she answered to anything) grew up as a bewildered little girl, famous in a family full of obsessive-compulsive talkers as the one who "wouldn't say shit if she had a mouthful." Over time she learned to cuss a blue streak. In fact, "shit" was her favorite curse word.

As a freshman in high school, Debbie found herself in a beginning typing class with her perfect, personable, straight-A-student older brother. This marked the first time in her life she discovered something she could do that her brother simply could not manage. A light bulb went off, and thus sprang forth Deb's illustrious career as a word processor, secretary, administrative assistant or office manager... pretty much any kind of job where it was vitally important that you crank out shit on a keyboard, and do it fast. Oh yeah, 112 wpm, no errors. You heard right.

In 1976, while cruising 16th Street in downtown Denver, Deb met and fell in love with a shaggy-haired salmon and crab fisherman from Alaska. This handsome young man with the exotic far-away life promised to love her forever, but instead broke her heart into a million tiny pieces. She then embarked on a years-long mission to determine how many other men she could lure into treating her even more badly than her first love. Not surprisingly, it was a rousing success. During those years, Deb enjoyed plenty of rum-n-Cokes with tequila shots, dug smoking pot while eating Doritos with M&Ms on the side, and especially loved dancing to music by Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, and Earth Wind & Fire. (Hey, it was the seventies.)

Growing weary of life in the fast lane, she eventually chose the grown-up approach to life and bought a townhome while simultaneously adopting an emotionally unstable, hairy black puppy. Along the way--in between typing faster and faster and moving into the corps of elite PC drones--Deb traded up to a sorry looking fixer-upper home and adopted another nutty, hairy black dog, seemingly cementing her future as a lonely spinster surrounded by quirky dogs and loads of dog hair.

In her mid-forties, a calm, quiet man from the internet appeared in her life, a fellow with freckles and strawberry blonde hair who didn't treat her badly and really liked her dog. This turn of events left her confused, bewildered, even frightened a little bit. So she married him, and they lived out the rest of their lives lovingly pestering one another while traveling, adopting more dogs (each one nuttier than the last), and purchasing one last fixer-upper home.

Deborah Ann enjoyed reading, loved to write silly stories and poetry, and spent much time contemplating the "what-ifs" of a dazed and confused life. After much consideration, she finally set an important goal for her golden years: to outlive her father, who died four days shy of his 85th birthday.

Born during a blizzard on March 1, Debbie died on a warm, sunny day, March 14, aged 85 years and 14 days. Her last words were rumored to be, "Holy shit, I did it."