The Hyperion Chronicles

Today, we present a joint effort. In cooperation with Tracy Kaply of KAPLY INC. (our very first Evil Kitty of the Realm), we are running a combined advice column. The way we did it was gather the questions you all wrote in, and start answering them back and forth in email. The first episode turned out pretty well, I think. The only problem is we don't know what to call it! But for now we'll say,

QUESTION #1

Who is smarter, Tracy or Hypey?

I predict fisticuffs with your answer ;^)

Signed,

"Breathlessly waiting for your reply"

Dear Breathless,

Tracy Lynn: I think it's fairly obvious that, although the margin is slender, I am the smarter. While Hyperion may be the flashier of the two of us, that is merely because I have no need to flaunt the vastness of my intelligence. Having nothing to prove, I am content to ply my brainy wiles beneath the radar.

Hyperion: I like the phrase "I am the smarter." Not "I am smarter" or "I am the smarter one," but "I am the smarter." I guess I have to agree. Anyone who can use "I am the smarter" in a sentence clearly is (the smarter).

Tracy Lynn: VICTORY IS MINE!!!!!!!!!

QUESTION #2

A friend of mine asked me to ask you the following. What is the best way to dispose of a body? And, umm, can you please hurry.......this guy is starting to get a little rank.

Signed,

"I was out of town when it went down"

Dear out of town,

Hyperion: Although I have no (cough cough) practically knowledge in this area, and can only answer (cough cough) hypothetically, there are two great methods for getting rid of bodies. As I don't want to hog all the answer, I will only speak to one.

You get steamer trunk, and use epoxy caulking and duct tape, seal it in the inside. (This won't be foolproof, but it only has to hold for a few hours, so it will work.) Then you line the inside of trunk with garbage bag material, and pour quick-lime into the steamer (You'll have to mix it up, but this isn't a difficult process. The instructions are usually on the 50 lb. bags. Incidentally, buy more bags than you need. There's nothing worse than getting halfway through a cor....job and realizing you don't have enough quicklime.)

Anyway, once you have the quicklime mixed you pour the steamer trunk about quarter full. Then you put the body in. You leave the clothes on the person (if they are troublesome to get rid of), but if you need space you can burn the clothes, but it's better to leave them on. (Think of it as one pot cooking.)

You will have to bend the body at weird angle, possibly dislocate some limbs, but don't worry about it; he won't feel a thing! You shouldn't have to cut the body up at all if you do it right, but if you absolutely must, wait a few hours. Once the body is dead there isn't as much bleeding, and do it on a plastic tarp.)

Once the body is in the trunk you fill the trunk the rest of the way with quicklime, and seal the trunk up. Now you wait a few hours for it to set, and you're done! In six months the quicklime (Calcium Oxide) will completely eat away the body, clothes; everything. Sometimes there is a fragment of bone or teeth left, but they are so small you can throw them in the nearest river.

Now, if no one is likely to look, you can store this trunk in your attic. If that's a problem, you need to find a cool dry place for six months. I recommend public storage. Scout the places out and find one that doesn't have working cameras. Then go to the junk yard and get a bunch of useless furniture. (Make sure to wear gloves during all of this, especially when handling the quicklime). Buy a few other trunks and fill them with cap, and store the whole thing in a storage locker - paying cash under a false name for a six month lease. At the end of the six months you can haul all the stuff to the dumb (checking for the stray tooth first), and you're done!

This method takes some time, but it's absolutely beautiful if you want to get rid of a body without any trace. Of course, there is one other way, but I'm hogging the column, so I'll turn it over to Tracy.

Tracy Lynn: Personally, I prefer this method. For this you will need to buy a tarp, a hacksaw and rent a wood chipper. If you can get a friend to rent the chipper for you, that's your best bet.

After rigor has started to leave the body, remove all clothes, then lay out the plastic tarp and, using the hacksaw, cut the body up into eleven inch pieces. Wrap in tarp, and put to one side.

Gather as much detritus as you can, and if that means you have to take limbs from some trees, so be it. Make a huge pile of tree limbs, etc.

At night, take the tarp bundle out and cover it with the tree limbs.

The following day, throw everything into the chipper. Not only will you have gotten rid of the body, but it will bring your lawn up a treat.

And don't forget wash out the chipper with hydrogen peroxide or bleach, to make any DNA analysis difficult. And I recommend burning the clothes and any personal items as soon as possible; anything that won't burn can be dumped in a can or dumpster in a neighboring town.

Hyperion: I'm not saying that's a bad way to go, but there's so much left to chance. We've all seen CSI: can you know you bleached every single microbe of blood? The whole thing is so messy; there's bound to be tons of splatter. What about inside the chipper? not to mention the fact that if you've never rented a wood chipper before...well, those things require a credit card: PAPER TRAIL!

But Tracy does bring up a good point. What if you don't have six months? In this case, I'd recommend giant pigs. Hogs are known to eat anything, up to and including the clothes on a man's back. Throw an adult male in with six large hogs and 24 hours later all you have is maybe a few indigestible teeth. A quick follow-up of the scat (sounds gross, but don't do the crime unless you can do the time), and you're home free.

Tracy Lynn: Dude, didn't you read about the pig farmer case, where they went back after YEARS and found DNA linking that pig farmer to the murders of something like 52 women? DO NOT USE THE PIGS!

I still think that Hyperion's idea is the best, although these days the rental of a storage unit requires ID and most of them have full video security. I mean, EVERYONE has seen Silence Of The Lambs, ya know? Plus, even with the quicklime, there is still the matter of odor.

How about those flesh eating beetles? They can denude a carcass in twenty-four hours. Then it's just a matter of bone disposal, which, once you remove the teeth, is easy- peasy.

Hyperion: I'm telling you woman, with quicklime there is no odor. I guess I passed over the miracles of quicklime because I assumed everyone would know. It's corrosive, and eats away everything, but once it hardens on the outside, you're fine (especially in a sealed trunk). And you'd be surprised how many rental lockers do not have video security. That's sort of their appeal. However, you don't have to go there. Your attic would work nicely.

As for the pigs, I don't recommend killing woman after woman with the same pigs (unless you're married to them). What I'm saying is if you need to get rid of a body quickly, the pigs will take care of it without much left over.

Of course, to be absolutely certain, you could always pick hogs that were about to be butchered....

Tracy Lynn: You're completely mad, because in REAL LIFE, not on Planet Hyperion, it doesn't work that well. And furthermore, I'm not sure what they have in the wilds of Canada, but here in Civilization, it's damn hard to find the kind of two bit operation you refer to, and even then, that's exactly the kind of place where people might get 'curious' about the funky smell...

And forget the damn pigs. Very few people, you will find, have access to pigs.

Hyperion: There is no smell with quicklime you dork! That's the whole reason for doing it. Besides, with the general smell in New England, how could anyone smell an army of rotting corpses?

And as for the storage place, I bet you three of my blogs that there are storage lockers within twenty miles of your house without adequate security. But if you're so paranoid, put them somewhere else. The point is that they will antiseptically disappear!

Tracy Lynn: Stop calling me a dork, or I swear to God, I'll come up there and we'll just see how your precious quicklime works.

As to the smell of New England, you, of all people, obviously can't be trusted on matters of taste. And I'll be doing a tour of our local storage facilities, toot sweet. You will feast on crow, you asshat.

George Washington once said, "Always stop when an asshat comes out," so I guess that's a good place to end for today. If we didn't get to your question yet, don't worry! We will try in a future episode. And if you have questions, please write us! We'd love to give you the answers....even if we don't agree.