Florrie and Gordon Brawley had been married for just under eleven years. They both worked for a pet food company. Gordon was in charge of the meat grinder and Florrie was in charge of the packaging.
Their marriage was disintegrating. Gordon suspected that his wife had been having an affair with the pet food company groundsman. Why else was she constantly admiring his delphiniums? That was when she accidently slipped into the meat grinder. Gordon was unaware of what had happened until there was nothing of her that hadn’t been minced. In fact, to be honest, he wasn’t sure if she’d fallen in the meat grinder at all. She was there one minute and gone the next.
“If she had fallen in,” said Gordon, “there would be bits of cloth here and there in the dog rolls and cat sachets. There is not a skerrick of fabric to be seen.”
He continued to feed the animal carcasses through the grinder. “She’ll turn up somewhere before the day is through.”
At the end of the day’s work Florrie still hadn’t made an appearance.
“Perhaps she went home on a bus,” suggested Gordon. He set off for home alone. On the way he dropped Florrie’s clothes off at the St Vincent de Paul’s Used Clothing Store.
Florrie was the one who fed their three dogs each evening. Gordon would have to do it himself. And to think! Florrie’s last words that morning to Gordon were, “I’ll always make sure the dogs get fed if it’s the last thing I do.” Thank goodness he had remembered to bring home some pet food.