My version of The Lovely Bones. Based on a true story.

My name was The Checkout Girl, because I worked in a grocery store for a living, and I died on January 31, 2010. It was a sad sort of death, the details of which were never revealed because to laugh at the expense of the dead is the worst kind of comedy, but I’ll tell you here because I’m totally deceased and don’t give a crap what you think of me.

I was walking my tiny chihuahua along the busy street that ran in front of my apartment. It was late at night, the day after a terrible storm, and my boots were covered with snow and my hands numb from the cold, as I impatiently waited for the dog to do her business. She circled time and again as if the fate of the world depended on the exact placement of her shit. Finally, she found the right location, too close to the road for my taste, and squatted to do her business. Just as she got comfortable, a car came barreling toward us, seemingly unable to see the fat girl in her pajamas or her tiny dog depositing a steamy pile of poo, so perfectly framed in its headlights. As I tried to pull the dog and myself out of the path of the oncoming car, she resisted, and I slipped on a patch of ice and tumbled ass over teakettle into some squishy freezing mud. I nearly soiled myself as the vehicle flew by, never slowing. Oh, did I say I died? I meant I killed my dog. The end.