In an attempt to erase the phrase "dying with dignity" from our collective memory, two of America's most embarrassing states have recently subjected innocent citizens to the kind of death traditionally reserved for the girlfriends of comic book characters.

In one corner we have Georgia, where police performing a routine backyard search for corpses discovered the body of former Florida crime reporter Sean Dugas encased in concrete. The homeowner ("There's simply no way to know empirically how many murder victims are in my backyard at any given time") admitted that his sons, secret murder twins William and Christopher Cormier, had recently returned from Florida, where they claimed to have been dog-sitting.

Because we live in a world without hope, police also found the body of the victim's dog buried in a different backyard belonging to the same family. Chief Dorsey, the head of the investigation, said they believed the concrete used to hide the body was purchased at a local Home Depot, because that's exactly the kind of soul-crushing, mundane detail that defines you when you're murdered in Georgia.

Not to be outdone, the Bumble Bee seafood processing plant in Whittier, California reported the death of one of its employees early Thursday morning after becoming accidentally and inexplicably trapped inside one of its "steaming machines."

"This is a horrendous tragedy," California OSHA spokeswoman Erika Monterroza said, failing to add, "that really could happen to any of us, at any moment, because we are simply meat and there is no order to things, no safeguards that can protect any of us from being boiled alive at 7 am."

In whatever form death takes when it comes for you, whether it be severe sepsis following complications from pneumonia or advanced carpal tunnel syndrome, take a moment to be grateful you were not pressed into a concrete tomb near your murdered dog, nor steamed alive, then oil-packed for freshness.

[CNN, Whittier Daily News]