"I'm Understaffed AF..." Says Grim Reaper After Local Hospital Serves Contaminated Salmon Mousse

HAGERSTOWN, MD – In an unprecedented and surprisingly candid interview, the entity known as Death expressed profound frustration due to an entirely preventable surge in his professional workload.

The incident, involving contaminated salmon mousse, forced Death into a "frantic multi-soul collection effort" reminiscent of New York City Mayor Cuomo's management of the COVID outbreak.

Speaking exclusively from a dimly lit corner of a vacated hospice ward, the hooded figure, whose skeletal hands gripped his scythe with weary familiarity, explained the severe strain on his operations.

“Look, I’m good at what I do. Efficient. Usually timely…

“But when a hospital kitchen decides to serve its entire geriatric wing a batch of improperly canned salmon mousse contaminated with a bacterial neurotoxin, it can really throw a wrench into my scheduling,” he rasped, a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement.

“I skipped three perfectly reasonable aneurysm appointments...”

The hospital, St. Bonaventure Memorial, confirmed an outbreak of deadly food poisoning affecting 47 patients and 12 staff members who had consumed the “Chef’s Special” salmon mousse during Wednesday lunch service.

While official reports remain cautious, sources within the emergency room described a scene of “unprecedented gastrointestinal distress followed by an alarming number of sudden, synchronous quietings.”

“People assume I’m omnipresent, infinite,” Death continued, leaning his scythe against a freshly emptied bed.

“I’ve got helpers, demons and such who can usually pop up in a pinch... But really the buck stops with me…

“I’m a bit short staffed these days… Fucking Gen Z demons don’t really want to work too hard.

"I’m just one guy, you know? There’s only so much soul-ferrying a single entity can do, especially when you factor in paperwork. The celestial bureaucracy for 59 sudden, nearly simultaneous departures? It's a nightmare. Each individual needs a unique cause-of-death time and code. 'Complications from poorly prepared emulsified fish product' isn't exactly in the standard handbook...

Dr. Alistair Peabody, Chief of Gastric Epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), noted the unusual nature of the cluster.

"While foodborne illness outbreaks are not uncommon, a mortality rate of this magnitude from a single hospital meal service is, shall we say, statistically significant. The specific strain of clostridium botulinum involved appears to have had an almost poetic efficiency."

Death bemoaned the human tendency towards preventable, large-scale incidents.

“Anyone could have seen this coming. I mean, it happened in Monty Python's ‘The Meaning of Life’… One would think with all your fancy science and germ theories, you’d figure out how not to poison a whole room of people with pureed fish,” he sighed, a cold draft accompanying the sound. “It’s the sheer incompetence that gets me. I’m already stretched thin with climate change, multiple wars, and people trying to film TikToks on train tracks. I don’t have time for amateur hour culinary mishaps.”

He concluded by urging humanity to “get your shit together,” or he might have to start taking sick days.