Akron, Ohio – GlossyNews.com – Ralph McFarden spent thirty years in the Sacramento sewer system. The waste engineer reportedly had a long and satisfying career with the Akron Waste Management Department before finally retiring to his modest home overlooking the North Akron Shopping Plaza last Monday. But fate had a nasty trick up its sleeve for this quiet pensioner.
Almost immediately after retiring, says Ruth McFarden, Ralph’s wife of twenty-five years, “Ralphie got hooked on old Lost episodes. Right away he runs out to Blockbuster and rents all six years of the series and then glues himself to the TV day and night, watching one episode after another.
I couldn’t pry him off the couch even for dinner. He wouldn’t even turn it off and come to bed at night. It went on for almost two days and nights straight. He said he had put this off for years so now he could watch the whole damn thing without commercials and wasn’t gonna move until he found out what was really going on on that island.”
Many times during this Lost marathon Ruth tried to get him to fast forward or take a peek at Year Six but the elder McFarden wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted on seeing every single episode from start to finish and even all of the Bonus Discs, Deleted Scenes, Commentaries and Bloopers.
In fact at one point McFarden threatened his wife with physical violence when she started to tell him what happens in the last episode, forcing her to call 911. Two police officers came to the McFarden home in answer to her call but refused to arrest Ralph, claiming he had broken no laws by watching 43 episodes of Lost in a row, and recommending that Ruth consider contacting a psychiatrist.
“I looked into that on the Internet and found a psychiatrist that treats addictions to TV shows but she wanted $1500 up front for making a house call. At that point Ralphie was on Year 4 so I figure save the money and just let him get through Year 6 and everything would turn out alright.”
But it was not to be. Monday morning Ruth found the elderly pensioner on the floor beside the sofa, still staring up at the TV screen, which was on Pause, frozen on the famous scene in Lost in which Jack the spinal surgeon discovers that his dad is having sex with his wife.
Ralph had apparently kept watching until the last second that he choked to death. Having eaten nothing except pepperoni pizza for two days, it is believed he expired from a fatal attack of acid reflux.
“You know what really breaks me up the most,” says Ruth, “is not so much that this good man spends thirty years in a sewer then dies watching Lost. It’s that he never found out what happens in the last episode. Mark my words, Ralph McFarden will never rest in peace.”