Yesterday was Valentine’s Day,
a day usually reserved for two things:
A) Being showered with ego-boosting gifts, balloons, and flowers and then devouring chocolates
filled with what appears to be toothpaste.
B) Feeling so wretched and alone
that one contemplates showering with one's favorite electrical appliance.
I experienced neither. Okay, not entirely true- I did get an Amazon
gift card from my Boy who was out of town on business, and even though
Match.com lists a gift card as #10 on the Top Ten Gifts Not To Give Women on Valentine’s
Day, it is precisely what I wanted. One stack of movies and CD’s and one pair
of alligator shaped socks later… I am a very happy girl! It would be hard for any man to buy for this level
of oddity, so I give him props. What I
mean to say was that instead of curling up on the sofa munching cookies with
pink frosting to watch a girly movie and/or sobbing silently in the shower, I
was at a funeral. This is my third one altogether,
and I still haven’t ever gone to one where I really knew the dead guy. They have all been for obscure relatives so I am mostly there for the food and the reunion and because, for
some reason, each funeral has been uniquely darkly hilarious in their own
way.
This funeral was for my “Uncle
Frank”, the cousin of my grandfather or something to that effect. It’s not a side of the family that I have had
any contact with but I have been curious about these people ever since my
mother described them to me by renting the movie Next of Kin and declaring- “See
that? This is just like my father’s
family”. If you have never seen this
movie, it stars Liam Neeson and Patrick Swayze as deep-south rednecks who start
a blood feud with the Chicago mob when their brother is murdered. An encouraging prospect, I thought. My grandfather, mother and I made the 8 hour
round trip together with my mother quizzing her father on the deeper scandals
of the family. Who was illegitimate, who
broke up whose marriage, who was sleeping with whom at the same time as [blank],
and who was suspected to have made who disappear … you know, the usual family
stuff. Each character had a colorful
name like Peaches, Fast Charles, and Aunt Floozie (who apparently weighed 400
lbs., had a mustache, and drove a Harley, so I cannot imagine how that nickname
came about). I halfway hoped the funeral
hall would be full of people without teeth and dressed in bib overalls, but alas! All pretty normal
looking little old people. Except the
lady who kept waving her hands in the air and screaming “Amen!” and “Praise
Jesus!” at awkward moments.
The service was conducted by
Reverend Kirk, who looked about 13 years old.
Reverend Repeat, I call him. I
suppose he was nervous to have to give a memorial to a packed room of 18 people
because the man stammered and rambled his way through the entire service,
forgetting his place and beginning again.
I had a flash of Death at a Funeral with the son mumbling “My father was
an exceptional man” 17 times. Reverend Repeat read the passage from Ecclesiastes
3 twice in the service and then again at the grave side. It is the “A Time for Everything” speech, and
most people just skip to the “A time to live and a time to die” bit, but not
Reverend Repeat. We heard the whole damn
thing, read with the utmost deliberation and the slowest possible pace. For those of you who never bothered with the
whole thing, here it is:
[Read the following as slowly
as possible. Pretend you are the
spokesman for the Clear Eyes commercials for full effect.]
1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose
under the heaven:
2A time to be born, and a time to die; a
time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3A time to kill, and a time to heal; a
time to break down, and a time to build up;
4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a
time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5A time to cast away stones, and a time
to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from
embracing;
6A time to get, and a time to lose; a
time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7A time to rend, and a time to sew; a
time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8A time to love, and a time to hate; a
time of war, and a time of peace.
9What profit hath he that worketh in
that wherein he laboureth?
10I have seen the travail, which God
hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
11He hath made every thing beautiful in
his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find
out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
[Now
repeat in five minutes for no reason whatsoever.]
Question: Just when is it a good time to cast away
stones or gather them together? The
hell?
The other scripture selections were similar, but with a lot more emphasis on how the body will decay over time, how disease will rack our minds and physical forms, how we will wither and our minds go astray, how we will lose strength and become nothing more than a useless “shell”, a burden upon our families. I thought this was a breathlessly insensitive speech to give to a room full of people in their 70s and 80s, until I saw all the brochures for the home’s assisted living facility in the hallway. Nice.
The only thing worse than the scripture and the speeches was the music. Dear God, the music! I am not sure, but I suspect the entire repertoire (six loooooooong songs in all) was specifically designed to make the hearer long for the fires of hell in the hopes that they will not be sentenced to an afterlife of horrifically nasaled songs about “the gud Loooord bayby Jeysus” in heaven. My mother and I could not look at one another with the risk of disgracing ourselves, but as soon as we escaped to the bathroom I turned to her and asked, “was I the only person who was jealous that Frank was dead one and didn’t have to hear the music at his service?”
In order to spare my family
from having to endure a similar ordeal, I have decided to outline my funeral
plans in advance right here, not unlike one of my favorite bloggers The Oatmeal did on his website (http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funeral). No trebuchet or volcano for me, though it's not a bad idea... hmm... I'll get back to you. As of now, here are my plans:
1) I
shall be cremated. I would like my ashes
to be mixed with high quality glitter.
2) There
shall be no viewing. Dead people in
boxes is always, always, ALWAYS creepy.
3) My
memorial service shall be 1 part bragging about how awesome I was, 3 parts mad
partying. On second thought, don’t
cremate me. I want my skeleton at the
party in a fabulous dress and with a hat tilted over my brow at a rakish
angle. Everyone must dance with my
skeleton at least once. There will be a
sign up sheet so that my bones can be passed from person to person for part
of each year. When no one is alive who
remembers me, donate me to a college so I can be part of fraternity
pranks.
4) I
will write my own biography. Reverend
Repeat described how Uncle Frank was born in 1919 and got to experience the “Roaring
20s” and the dustbowl. Since he was an
infant in the 20s and grew up on the coast, I can’t imagine him hanging out in
a speakeasy with flappers or trying to earn money picking oranges in California. Try some real life experiences! To this end, I will tell stories like the
time I went to the alligator petting zoo in Mexico, the time I almost got eaten
by a shark, the time a cabana boy tried to kidnap me in Honduras, the
time I accidentally went to a gay orgy in the canyons of Utah, the time I went drunk mini-golfing. So many great stories…
5) I
will request that each of my past lovers write letters to be read aloud
describing how hot I was, how amazing I was in bed, and how I ruined them for
all other women.
6) My
oddest belongings will be auctioned off at the end of the evening, such as my rock
egg collection, my rubber chicken, and my new alligator shaped socks! All the proceeds will go to my mom, cause she's nifty.
7) The
music at my service will most likely not be about “The Bayby Jeysus” and will
more likely have to something like Hells Bells by AC/DC. And of course we'll need some David Bowie in there somewhere. More details to follow.
I
hope and pray that these wishes are treated with respect and honored to the
letter.
Therefore,
I, the undersigned, hereby certify that I am of sound (ish) mind and slammin’
body,
-The Marauding
Hippo
P.S. If
you think this is bad, wait till you see my wedding plans. For now just picture me on an elephant with bridesmaids
and groomsmen waving palm fronds and singing to the tune of “Prince Ali”. And that’s just the beginning! The reception
will make Caligula blush...
