The Inconvenience of Aunt Mildred

Bartholomew "Barty" Butterfield wasn't a cruel man, but when he found Aunt Mildred stiff as a week-old baguette on her floral chintz sofa, his primary thought wasn't grief. It was, quite frankly, "Oh, for heaven's sake, Mildred. Now?" The aroma of stale lavender and something vaguely… meaty… confirmed her commitment to the bit.

Mildred had always been an inconvenience, even alive. Her endless critiques of Barty's life choices (mostly "lack of choices") now seemed almost endearing compared to the current logistical nightmare. Funeral homes quoted figures that could fund a small nation's espresso habit. Cremation felt like an overly dramatic exit for a woman who preferred her drama in the form of passive-aggressive needlepoint. And burial? Barty couldn't even keep a houseplant alive, let alone commit to the long-term maintenance of a gravesite.

He tried brainstorming. A sudden, mysterious disappearance? Too much paperwork. Donating her to science? Her medical history was mostly complaints about drafts and the youth of today; hardly groundbreaking research material. He briefly considered dressing her in a fetching hat and propping her up in the front yard, a macabre scarecrow, but the neighborhood watch was notoriously humorless.

"Honestly, Mildred," Barty muttered, nudging her slightly with a broom handle (safety first), "you couldn't have just, I don't know, *vaporized*? Or left detailed instructions? 'Please dispose of me via tasteful trebuchet into the North Sea, darling.'"

Days bled into a peculiar routine of air fresheners and existential dread. The fridge was full, the attic too dusty, and the garden gnomes already looked suspicious enough without a new, more corporeal companion. He even contemplated a particularly robust composting solution, then shuddered. Even for Mildred, that felt... un-gentlemanly.

Finally, driven by the sheer tyranny of the stench, Barty resorted to Plan Z: "Temporary Cold Storage." He dragged Mildred, with surprising difficulty (she was heavier in death than she'd seemed in life, a final act of spite), to the unused walk-in freezer in the garage. As he wrestled her inside, a small, crinkled note fell from her hand.

"Barty," it read in her spidery script, "I knew you'd find a way to make this about you. And the smell. You always hated my perfume."

Barty sighed, closed the freezer door, and resolved to check estate agent listings for houses with much larger, much more distant garages. The inconvenience of Aunt Mildred, it seemed, was only just beginning.