She claimed the only thing she ever wanted from life was a Sony color TV.

Her kids, whom she had some how picked up along her way through life, called her the wicked witch of the east after her favorite movie.

She claimed the witch got a raw deal and cried each time the woman melted.

A toothless crone from gum diseased, she usually left her dentures in the cub overnight - cackling over Johnny Carson monologues, her knees jerking under her quilt with each joke - her yellowed toes exposed at intervals, hurting from the decay of cancer she claimed she caught from microwave transmissions.

Stuck with the kids, she considered her alcoholic husband crazy and had him committee, taking him out once a month to sign his Veterans' checks - he always sleeping in the spare room like a sedated squirrel, always moaning and groaning about the lack of money that had kept him from marrying her.

And she, cursing him on his death bed when the state denied her his benefits, a curse carrying over to her own kids when they flatly refused to grant her a last request to bury her with her TV set.