A few words on death

dead1

I think about death. A lot. I was thinking about it today. Thinking about how all of us, no matter our views on nudity, modesty or the sanctity of the body, will inevitably find ourselves lying dead and naked on a slab with some poe-faced mortuary attendant hunched over us with a clip-board. That’s the best case scenario. Worst case, some psychopathic medical student will be playing keepy-uppy with our severed balls or tits. On the bright side, we’ll be dead and we won’t give a shit either way. Regardless, I want them to know, these ghouls. I want them to know that I’ve lived my life accepting the allignment of my destiny with theirs. I want to communicate with them from beyond the grave. I was thinking a stomach tattoo. I’m torn between I KNOW A NECROPHILIAC WHEN I SEE ONE and YOU’RE NEXT. I’m open to suggestions.

That led me to thinking about people who work in funeral parlours. Do undertakers and mortuary assistants have appraisals at work? What form do they take?

Funeral director: probably the most hilarious of all the professions

Funeral director: probably the most hilarious of all the professions

Well, Colin, thank you for attending your annual review today. For starters, can you tell me anything that you think you’ve done well in the mortuary over the last twelve months, anything you’re particularly proud of?”

Hmmmm… well, of all the bodies I’ve tended to this year, less than thirty per cent of them ended up looking like Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.”

A real improvement on last year, Colin. Now, can you think of any way that you could make your processes more efficient?”

We could… put the make-up on people while they’re still alive in the hospice, get them in and out faster on the day?”

“Oh, that’s brilliant, I’ll make a note of that.”

Face-painting?”

I’m not sure I follow…”

Well, I’m always at a loose-end during the funeral itself, but if people brought their kids I could set up in a side-room and do their faces up like cats and wizards and that. Charge five pound a face.”

(nodding vigorously) And then, if any of the adults are particularly upset as they file out of the service, they’ll come out, turn a corner and…”

BAM. Wee guy with a tiger face.”

Wee guy with a tiger face!”

I know a tiger face would cheer me up.”

Oh, me too, Colin, that’s….BRILLIANT! You’d just have to make sure to wash the brushes out before you used them on the kids’ faces.”

I could just use different brushes.”

(claps hands together, frantically scrawls in notepad) This must be how Mr Miagi felt in the Karate Kid! Any other initiatives?”

(ponders) You know, when people think funeral procession, they think sssllllow. But why does it have to be slow? If the drivers absolutely caned it, we could squeeze in a few extra funerals every day, plus the mourners would be too distracted to be depressed.”

Make it more fun!”

Make it more fun. Give the hearses a siren like Ecto-1 from the Ghostbusters. People would go crazy for that shit. Give the guy with the big top hat who traditionally walks in front of the procession a quad bike.”

Jesus Christ, Colin, you’re taking me to funeral director school today, son!”

Maybe this is a little too radical, but how do you feel about group discounts for bonfires?”

hearse

I would hate to be a mortician or an undertaker. Imagine coming home frisky and angling for sex. I imagine there’d be an insistent, unshooshable voice in my partner’s head saying to her: “How the hell can he be horny after looking at dead bodies all day? Unless… oh God, he isn’t horny BECAUSE of the dead bodies, is he? I swear to Christ, if he tells me to stop moving around so much I’ll snip his dick off…”

How could you ever feel horny ever again? I know there are some strange aphrodisiacs in this world, but recently-deceased 87-year-old Gladys McLintoch surely isn’t one of them. Sex and death are inextricably linked, and sometimes proximity to death, and fear of mortality, can trigger the reproductive instinct; that being said, most normal guys wouldn’t gaze down at the face of a dearly departed old granny, allow a lop-sided leer to slip across their lips, and think to themselves: ‘The wife’s going to be walking like John Wayne when I’m done with her tonight.’ 

One final thought: do hearse drivers get to take their work vehicles home and use them recreationally, like taxi drivers do? “Well, it’s an absolute bastard to reverse park the thing, but it’s so good for the weekly shop. I can fit in the bog paper, washing powder, everything.”