Posted on 06/06/2002 9:19:52 PM PDT by Texaggie79
By MIKE FOSTER When widow Gloria Trenchley hits the road, she always feels like her late husband Leonard is close by -- because she keeps his stuffed corpse in the passenger seat of her car! "You can call me silly, or over-sentimental, but having Lenny there in the car beside me makes me feel much safer on the road, especially at night," says the 38-year-old mother of two, who lives in Bayshore, N.Y. "Carjackers think twice when they see him sitting there. And it's convenient, too. With a 'passenger' in the car, I get to drive in the car-pool lane on the highway." Gloria decided against a traditional burial when Leonard, a traveling sales rep for a drug company, dropped dead from a sudden heart attack in 1995. "Lenny was very claustrophobic -- the last thing he would have wanted would be to be stuck in some coffin underground forever," Gloria explains. "He always liked the open road, so keeping him in the car just seemed like the most natural thing in the world." An accommodating funer-al director arranged to have Leonard's body specially preserved, using the same method used to stuff movie cowboy Roy Rogers' dead horse Trigger. "I was told that as long as I try to avoid long road trips in the middle of summer, Lenny should last the way he is for many years," says Gloria, a travel agent. "I'm also supposed to keep the AC as high as possible and keep the temperature low in the garage." Leonard's body, propped up in the seat with a shoulder harness on and posed with a drink in one hand and a Twinkie in the other, looks amazingly lifelike -- so much so, that fellow motorists are usually fooled. "Leonard still has his good looks and once in a while, when I'm at a traffic light, some little hussy in a fancy sports car will pull up and make goo-goo eyes at him," Gloria reveals with a chuckle. "I'll roll down the window, lean over and shout out, 'You're barking up the wrong tree, honey. No. 1 he's married -- and No 2, he's dead.' "You should see the look in those bimbos' eyes when they hit the accelerator and blast the hell out of there." At first, neighbors and relatives thought Gloria had gone bonkers, but they've gotten used to seeing her late mate "waiting" outside in the car for hours on end at events such as Christmas parties and school plays. And the wacky widow's children, ages 11 and 14, love having their father around. "The kids feel like Dad is still with them," says Gloria. "When we pick them up after school, they'll chatter on and on to him about how their day went." Gloria says she, too, chats with her stiff spouse, especially when stuck in traffic. "If I get lost on a road trip, I'll catch myself asking Lenny to pull out a map," admits the body-on-board lady driver. "And I'll flip from a radio station if a rap song comes on, because he always hated it. "Sometimes we'll even argue, just like in the old days. The only difference is now I always win." |
Some reporters still bring Helen Thomas to White House briefings.
It must double as a good vandal deterrant. Just don't hit the brakes too hard. ech.
I absolutely hate the "moved to chat" feature, and its capricious, arbitrary enforcement.
It is apparently where anything The Moderator doesn't find interesting gets disposed of.
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