I'm not dead yet!

So a few weeks ago my male coworker, K, came into the lab and announced that he had a dilemma. Seems that he was invited, in a rather unclear and roundabout fashion, to the birthday party of an 80-something year-old woman. He was all set to go and then her husband died.

But wait....

The party is still on.

So K wanted to know if he should go.

We debated for a while what the etiquette would be for this situation and what her motivation would be to actually keep the plans. I proposed that she was just old enough that she wanted to celebrate at any opportunity. H, my female coworker, said that she had probably killed him herself and was celebrating the victory.

H & I decided that K shouldn't go. He felt that the free food was worth any possible social awkwardness.

And work continued with the conversation drifting on to other topics.

About an hour later, H announces, "I bet she's planning to kill herself and want to say goodbye to everybody she loves."

K came in a few days later and announced that he wasn't going to the party after all.

The lady had died (of NATURAL causes) over the weekend.