One Weekend, Two Pick-ups

It seems that all my best stories are destined to be somebody else's. But I feel it's ok to tell them as long as I'm not more than 1 person removed from the story. Which I am, so here goes the story:

While my coworker drove me to work today (I didn't have my van since I'd left it at the depot before going to the airport on Thursday) he told me about his weekend. He was on call and it was, apparently, pretty busy.

One of his calls was for a pickup of a mattress which never got used in Napa. This happens from time to time, especially for hospice accounts.

He went to the house to pick up the mattress, and was led into a room with the hospital bed, complete with mattress, and a second regular bed, presumably for use of the caregiver or family member. He, for whatever reason, sat down on the edge of the normal bed to ready himself to deflate and bag the air mattress. But when his butt touched the bed, the family member who had led him into the house said, "Maybe you shouldn't sit there. My Grandma is sill under the covers." He looked around to see, apparently for the first time, that there was a person-shaped lump under the covers.

Later that weekend my coworker went to pickup a mattress from a facility. He found the room in question, but the person was still in the bed. He said to the patient, "Hello sir. I'm here to switch out your mattress. I'll be right back with the nurse."

So off he went to find a nurse. When he found one he explained that the patient was still in the bed, and the nurse said someone was coming to get the person up. So my coworker went back into the room to wait. The nurses seemed to be taking their time in coming to get the patient out of bed, so my coworker said a few things to the patient; All small talk, or whatever it is that my coworker considers small talk.

Finally, after 20 minutes or so, he heard footsteps approaching the room. Through the door entered two men in suits and ties wheeling a gurney. They picked up the sheet the patient was laying on, the patient, and the top sheet and lifted the whole shebang onto the gurney. Then they covered the patient's face, and wheeled him out the door.

For those of you who are keeping score that's:
Sightings of dead people: 2
Conversations with the recently departed: 1
Number of times either of those things has happened to me: 0

And believe you me, I'm not unhappy about it.