Why Denise is the best thing on TikTok | Opinion

Columnist Kate Cohen doesn't believe in the afterlife. But she believes in Denise, Heaven’s Receptionist.

Denise is a gum-chewing, keyboard-clacking office worker — in heaven — who answers the phone, greets new arrivals and gives out the WiFi password. She asks the dead what they want their ghost outfits to be and checks them back in from visits “downstairs.”

“Denise” was created by Taryn Delanie Smith, the current Miss New York and media personality and a former receptionist herself. In a white bathrobe standing in for celestial robes, using a pink plastic razor as a headset, she nails the details of office lifethe strained politeness on the phone with a difficult client, the sotto voce comments to colleagues, the group coffee order, the faulty printer. Between calls, Denise gossips about Jackie O. bumping into Marilyn Monroe or complains that Paul Revere writes every email in all caps. Read moreSubscribe to The Washington Post on YouTube