From Sunday’s dinner conversation, based on what turns out to have been slightly inaccurate information (it was actually a coat rack affixed to the wall, which explains everything and renders the whole inquiry moot):
E.S.: Hey, did you hear about the reality show guy who killed his model wife and then hanged himself?
FAUSTUS: I heard he was a person of interest. I didn’t know he’d hanged himself.
E.S.: Yeah, they found him in a motel closet.
FAUSTUS: That’s unobtrusive. So, what, I guess he punched a new hole in his belt? His waist can’t have been as narrow as his neck.
E.S.: No, he didn’t need to punch a hole.
FAUSTUS: What, he used one of the holes that was already there and kicked a stool out from underneath himself?
E.S.: It was a motel closet. I don’t think there was room.
FAUSTUS: Well, what then?
E.S. (exasperated): I didn’t see the crime scene. He must have just left it free and tightened it and waited till he passed out and died.
FAUSTUS: So he didn’t hang himself, he strangled himself.
E.S.: I want to strangle you.
FAUSTUS: …
E.S.: In fact, I’m trying to remember a time I didn’t want to strangle you.
(FAUSTUS thinks.)
FAUSTUS: Between your first e-mail to me and our first phone conversation?
E.S.: I’m not so sure about that.
FAUSTUS: Oh, because I pointed out that you’d used impending when you meant incipient?
E.S.: No, this is the first time you’ve shared that information with me.
FAUSTUS: Whoops.
E.S.: You know, I was wrong when I said I wanted to strangle you. I want to decapitate you, dismember you, and stuff you in a suitcase.
FAUSTUS: Hey, you wrote it, not me.
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