More fun at funerals!!

I wrote a few weeks ago about all the fun I had at a friend’s funeral and I said just about everything there is to say about the big sendoff. But wait, there’s more!

• A funeral home is like a cruise ship. We all gather for an event, think it’s very important and meaningful, and then we have to exit quickly because they need to get ready for the three o’clock departure.                 
• When you sign the guest book, they ask for an email address. Maybe it’s for the mourners and maybe I’m about to get a BOGO from Everlasting Acres.
• Everyone you see at a funeral looks familiar, which seems odd at first but ultimately makes sense. These are all the same old people I’ve been seeing at religious events and funerals since I wasn’t a member of their cohort.
• Whenever I’m listening to a eulogy, I start making a checklist of all the things I need to get done so they can add those items to mine. They’re always really cool things like swimming across the Atlantic or endowing a hospital and everyone will know it’s a lie, but I’ll be impervious to embarrassment by then.
• With so many newspapers and theater companies going out of business, there’s definitely a market for critics who want to try their hand at funerals. The scenes are both predictable and surprising, the scripts vary from tragedy to comedy, and there’s a reality-show vibe that can present itself at any moment. This is a no-fail concept, soon to be followed by reviews of weddings, Quinceaneras, and ritual circumcisions.
• I scheduled my funeral at the cemetery, so nobody has to deal with one of those long funeral processions that eats into your yoga time. You can all thank me now for my consideration, because it will be too late when you’re really appreciating the gesture.
• Zoom is a crime against humanity, and even more so when it comes to funerals. Mourners are in a fog and they won’t remember all the details, but they will remember the isolation of being alone in the room, and no list of remote participants makes up for that.
  
• Speaking of crimes against humanity, how long will it be before we have AI funerals with botscribed eulogies, welcomes from a VR guest of honor, and virtual processions to the cemetery? Yeah, it sounds pretty crazy and stupid, but that’s what they said about swallowing Tide Pods.
  
• And…how long do you wait before you take someone’s name off your contact list? I still have people on my contact list who haven’t been available for contact in several years. Every time I come across one of them, I think about deleting the entry, but it’s like killing them all over again. (I wrote that wrong. I didn’t really kill them the first time. Well, one or two, but not all of them.)
  

So, they always tell you to write what you know, and that explains why I end up writing more about funerals than world travel, mountain climbing or orgies. Gee, it’s so much fun getting old.

Next week, we’ll catch up with a bagpiper on Lake Michigan as we race toward my most depressing day of the year. Only subscribers will make the connection between the two, so click here to become a subscriber.

---