Tales of Eastern Europe

In the stark absence of anything relevant, newsworthy or erudite to impart today, I leave you with the Vaudevillian cop-out that is this:

An elderly Ukrainian man lay dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of impending death, he suddenly smelled the thick, familiar aroma of his favourite Ukrainian perogies with fried onions and salt pork wafting up the stairs. He gathered all his remaining strength, and feebly lifted himself from the bed. Gripping the railing with both hands, he crawled downstairs.

Downstairs, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen, where if not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven, for there, spread out upon waxed paper on the kitchen table were hundreds of his favourite perogies.

Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of love from his wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

He threw himself towards the table, landing on his knees in a crumpled heap. His parched lips parted, the wondrous taste of the perogies was already in his mouth.

With a trembling hand he reached for a hot buttered perogie at the edge of the table, when suddenly, he felt a searing blow to his hand from a lightning-fast wooden spoon.

"Get the fuck out of here old man" she screamed. "They're for the funeral!"