Sittin With The Dead

Say what???

2010-08-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

"For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off."

Johnny Carson (1925 - 2005)

*Note* Don't be so edgy, I didn't take this picture of a dead person's hand...I pulled it off Google images. Gheesh...I'm not a sick freak.

A Funny Welcome Back From The Dead

2010-08-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

Don't know why I ever took this blog off the WWW, but I started reading it and it is funny as crap. I encourage people to post it everywhere. Facebook, Blogger link, Wordpress, Twitter...whatever....I will start off by bringing you a joke. Hardy, har, har. Enjoy.

Thaddie J. Walker

*JOKE*

As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper's cemetery in the Kentucky back country.

As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn't stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch. I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late.

I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn't know what else to do, so I started to play. The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I've never played before for this homeless man. And as I played 'Amazing Grace,' the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together.

When I finished I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full. As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, "I never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years."

Apparently I'm still lost!!!

Mr. Foo and the dead.

2009-10-13T05:15:00.001-07:00

Did I ever tell you that you should never be afraid of a dead body? A lot of people are scared of them, but seriously....I have never seen one move, sit up, breath, or even twitch. I am telling you when you are dead you are dead. Now I have seen bodies that should for all appearances seem rather scary looking, but they aren't really frightening to me anymore: car accident victims, murders, people who have been eaten up with cancer and are nothing but skin and bones and just plain old age.

But the funniest thing in the world to me is an Asian person around a dead body. They will tolerate being in the same room, will stay a few feet back from the casket, be very quiet, and will totally freak out if you even mention shutting the door in the visitation room to give them some privacy. I think they must believe the spirit hovers around the body for a few days or something because they are as nervous as hell. I should really read up on their cultural belief to address this mystery. And I did learn this lesson the hard way one day when I tried to quietly pull the door shut.

"I will give you a few moments alone, Mr. Foo."

Mr. Foo whirls around dramatically, eyes as big as the full moon outside, "You no shut door, you NO SHUT DOOR."

Whoa there little man....simmer down. It's all cool. I put my hands up and said..."You want this open," pointing to the door.

"Yes, yes, yes," I could see the sweat on his upper lip. "I not be here long. You keep door open. I leave soon."

"Yessireeee."

Weird.

Anyway....just so you know, when you are dead....I promise...you are dead.

I think...

Happy Halloween

2009-10-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

It's getting close to Halloween time again and as every year I wish I had the guts to take some of my friends into the funeral home on Halloween night and show them around that creepy old place. But, I am sure I will chicken out as usual. I can only imagine what Undertaker would have to say about that. He would act all richy bitchy and be the snot he is because he is just an ass...and he's getting fat, I have another blog post in mind for Undertakers ever rounding belly and face, stay tuned for that. Anyway....he would act all offended and hurt that I would even consider doing such a thing.

I found out today that he doesn't even speak to his employees outside the office which I think is pretty hypocritical for a supposed Baptist man who has the "perfect" life. I wonder what happened to the Christian code, "Love others as you love yourself." I suppose it went straight down into his stomach with the copious amounts of vodka that he consumes. I don't allow him to treat me that way...I do not run in the crowds of the snooty Baptists. I prefer people who are real and true to themselves and if you can't do that then stay far away from me.

SO.....I suppose no tour of the spooky old funeral home this Halloween. Although...it would be fun...in the dark.

Say What???

2009-07-29T06:08:00.000-07:00

A mortician was working late one night.
He examined the body of Mr. Schwartz, about to be cremated, and made a startling discovery.
Schwartz had the largest private part he had ever seen!
'I'm sorry Mr. Schwartz,' the mortician commented, 'I can't allow you to be cremated with such an impressive private part. It must be saved for posterity.'
So, he removed it, stuffed it into his briefcase, and took it home.
'I have something here that you won't believe,' he said to his wife, opening his briefcase.
'My God!' the wife exclaimed, 'Schwartz is dead!'

Say Cheese...

2009-07-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

Saw flashes coming from the back of the funeral home so I go in to check it out...a woman is standing on a chair snapping pictures of grandma in her casket.

"Maam?" I say.

"I have never seen her look so good." Then she started snapping again.

Ugh!!! I give up.

Dead and in hell according to her...

2009-07-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

I have to tell you about this one night I was working visitation for this gentleman who was in his late 50's. I think he died from lung cancer. He smoked 2 packs a day and was proud of it. So proud in fact that on the table the family set up in the room next to his body they put pictures on to honor his life was his leather cigarette case with half a pack of Pal Mals....they said he loved his smokes. "Enough to die for the damn things I thought?" But, who am I to judge? I am just there to make sure the doors get locked after 8 o'clock and offer any sort of emotional support I may muster up, cold hearted thing I have become...

Anyhow, the family leaves at 8ish and I am there in the room with Mr. Blacklung when out of the blue a woman sticks her head in the visitation room and says, "You still open?" And besides for the piss running down my leg from fright I realize that I had forgotten to lock the front door at 8 meaning that I had no choice but to let her view Blacklung. I tell her she can sign the book and view the body but that I had to straighten up the room because we were in fact closed. She signs and then peers at him lying in his casket. I am being very respectful and quiet when out of the blue she says, "You know he was a bastard?" I catch my breath and try to think of a way to address such a statement. It is not often...well almost never....does anyone speak harshly of the dead.

And for once I am speechless. I turn toward her and she is staring at his corpse. And I am wondering what on earth he ever did to her to cause such hate and discontent. There are no tears in her eyes, no trembling...she's just staring into his face and then stands up straight looks at me.

"Come here," she says. "Look at him."

I slowly walk over. "Look in his face." And I do. "That son of a bitch is burning in hell right now, you know?"

I cough lightly. Then pat her on the back. I do not know what she has been through, but I softly say, "Let me walk you to the door...we are closed now."

"You don't have to walk me, I was just leaving."

And she left.

Whoa...

Death Becomes Us All...

2009-06-27T06:10:00.000-07:00

Please excuse me for being non-politically correct here but these words actually did not come out of my mouth...they came out of Undertakers, no surprise there...I had not been to work in about a week because there was nothing happening which was okay with me because the previous week we had a death that had been a huge media event and I was tired emotionally. So...when he called me the other day to ask me to help on this funeral I was ready to go back to work, and as always I ask, "So who died?"

His reply, "The town retard."

Well, judging by the amount of people that attended this funeral the "town retard" was a pleasant person and despite being hit by a bus, a car, a motorcycle, falling down stairs, walking around town weaving in and out of traffic, and living from one state assistant check to the next while gambling at the casino (and actually winning ten thousand dollars once) in the end cancer got him. Which I thought kind of sucked. Drats!

Lover of Death

2009-04-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

I watched him embalm once and with the steady hand of a seasoned surgeon. His scalpel shiny and clean sliced, the groin, the neck and then there was blood...lots of blood. And it ran down the drain.

The mans name was Ben, I will never forget.

I did okay with all that blood, it was when he stuck his finger in the slit in the throat did I begin to feel that this man...the Undertaker was not normal. As he probed for the artery and vein in the neck, the carotid and the jugular, I watched through eyes of wonderment. It was almost as though he enjoyed it. The crunching sounds are still clear in my head...

He dug until he found them and pulled them up outside of the neck to plug them so he could run embalming fluid into Ben. The sounds of the digging and pulling and ripping of those delicate veins is what finally got me. This was someones husband, father, son...stop it. Benny...

I don't know why I had wanted to watch, but I had begged for months. Some sick and twisted part of me wanted to see what happened after death. What the big deal was about preserving a body that would be turned back over to the earth. But, I wasn't expecting this...some perversion of nature, some raw exam room of sorts where the body is fed a tool of mummification to be displayed before loved ones and how anyone could ever do what he was doing. Flushing blood, cutting flesh, sewing that cold stiff mouth.

It was then I realized this man was a sick twisted fuck because normal people do not dig into the neck of another. I knew from that very moment that there was not one normal brain cell in his head...he had to be a lover of death.

And the next thing I remember was opening my eyes and seeing his huge blue ones looking back into mine. His scalpel caught the light and he moved in closer.

I gasped.

"Are you okay? You passed out. Sat straight down on your butt, must have hurt. Can I help you up?"

Yes....help me up and get me the fuck out of here.

I don't go into that room anymore.

Preachers are weird....

2009-04-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, I said it, men of the cloth are just weird. I know most people would say that is a sacreligious thing to spout out, but it's true.

They are just weird, man.

I have never met anyone so pompous or stuck up (other than Undertaker) than the Medium Midwestern town preacher or priest. I always see them coming....stomping towards me, service order in hand and chip on the shoulder. I am only, in fact the "sound girl/visitation bitch." A peon in society.

Anyhow, this is the way I like it done, they usually say. In this order, I will give the signal to play this song, and at the end play postlude music, to set the mood. Like I would just make a family sit in silence and stare at their dead loved one without something as beautiful as Nearer My God to Thee piping through the building. Even the orchestra on the Titanic had that much sense, I'm not a fucking moron, Ted Haggard.

So, they get up front, blow in the microphone just to make sure the idiot sound girl remembered to turn it on and they sit and wait for the family to come in. Then they thumb through their bible acting like they are doing something Godly, when they in fact know exactly what they are gonna say because I have their sermon notes in front of me.

I, of course have many funny preacher stories to tell and I am gonna start something on this blog called, funny words heard at a funeral, but first have to tell you that this one preacher preached a sermon about this man who was killed in a motorcycle accident. He didn't know this man because the dude was an atheist, so he's trying his best to preach and, hey kudos to him...but at the end of the sermon he goes, "Everyone bow your heads and lets have a word of prayer. God, I know that this family of...uhhhhh...." and he starts shuffling through his notes and finds the guys name (cause he FORGOT), Joe Anderson is in great grief...blah, blah, blah." And he finishes the prayer, but I saw the sweat break out on his forehead, I saw him gulp because I never close my eyes or bow my head during the prayer...I saw him stumble and he saw that I saw.
So, afterwards he comes up to me and I see it in his eyes, he wants to know if I saw his mistake...so I lightly punch him on the shoulder and say, "Mr. uhhhhhhh, " and I shuffle through my service folder and pretend to look for the name, "Mr. Joe Anderson, saw that and so did I."

He rolled his eyes and walked off.

Men of the cloth are human I have learned...and weird.

Smile...Oh Wait, I Forgot...You Can't.

2009-01-31T08:15:00.000-08:00

One of the things that freaks me out and always has since I was a kid was when people take pictures of their loved one in the casket. For the life (no pun intended) of me I just do not get that. It's just weird. I remember looking through this old photo album at my grandmothers house when I was a kid and I turn the page and there is a picture of this dead little girl...I remember physically shuddering in my skin.

"Who is this, Mema?"

"Oh that's your cousin Valerie. She was born retarded and died of pneumonia."

To this day I can remember her pasty white little dead face. It haunts me.

If anyone takes a picture of me in my casket I will haunt them...just sayin'

What Are You Talking About?

2009-01-31T08:06:00.000-08:00

Preacher conducting a funeral points at body, "We do not mourn as the heathen who slash their bodies in grief, we mourn as normal people do."

Huh?

I've seen probably 500 funerals and I have yet to run across a person slashing themself with any sort of weapon. But, whatever...

Fry, Fry, Fry with Satan.

2009-01-14T07:24:00.000-08:00

The other day a preacher at a funeral said,

"Your can either choose God and go to heaven...or you can fry with Satan."

I had never heard it put that way...yikes. Decisions...decisions...I can either walk on streets of gold and lay in the green grass in the presence of the Creator of the universe OR I can be thrown in a burning lake and have my face melted off my skull.

Can I have a few days to decide or is this a pressing issue that I have to address currently?

Flowers are the Devil

2008-12-07T05:43:00.000-08:00

They may be beautiful. They look pretty arranged all nicely around the casket. You may feel it is a kind gesture to send flowers to a funeral, but let me give you a little inside to the funeral business.

WE FUCKING HATE FLOWERS!!!

They stain your clothes. They stink. They start to rot before the funeral and make the smell of death even worse. Have you ever gone into a funeral home and smelled something funny? You think of all the creepy things it might be (dead body), no, it's the stupid flowers. Lastly, they are super heavy. For some reason the flower shops believe if you fill the vases or containers all the way to the top they will stay more fresh. Well, let me give you a hint here flower shop owners of the world. after you lug the big bastard into our funeral home it is moved 6 billion times before it lands in the bottom of a dumpster (provided the family doesn't take it home which they usually don't if they have a precious plant instead). First thing we do is dump most of the water out because it's too heavy to carry. So, do yourself and us a favor and go green...save a little water.

The normal route for a heavy ass flower container goes a little like this. Flower shop to flower van, flower van to our flower room, flower room back outside to dump 3 gallons of water, back inside to visitation room, visitation room back outside to funeral flower van, funeral flower van into the church, back outside to funeral van or family vehicle, then it gets crazy...if you are a cut flower you might get to go to the cemetery where you are then blown away or a nursing home to be dissembled and made into 11 different flower arrangements giving the elderly something to do (I like this idea personally). Or worst case scenario you are dead at the bottom of the dumpster and considering you cost an average of $100 I think it would just be better to just donate the money to a nonprofit charity organization and save the back of some poor funeral home employee.

Please, I beg.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

2008-12-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

When people find out I work in the funeral business they are automatically freaked out a little.

"How can you do that?"

"That's gross."

"Do you ever see brains?"

And the big question...

"Are you ever afraid?"

Truth is, yes, I am frightened often. Especially in the winter months when it gets dark before I leave and have to lock up a dark funeral home and walk to my car alone.

And...I have one rule that I have stood by with the exception of one time,

"Once that place is locked up, never, ever go back in."

My logical mind knows that once you are dead, you're dead. But, sometimes my mind goes a little crazy and I think...what if? What if the person wasn't "really" dead. What if there is some strange twilight zone that really is this thing between space and time and the dead get up and walk around? What if I went back in and Mr. Jones was using the toilet? What if the dead are just pissed off and the dark wakes them. What if they just want to haunt something? What if there are zombies and they want to eat my throat out? Seriously, it gets freaky. And it gets really freaky when there are more dead people in the building than there are living. And late at night that usually means only one...me.

So, set the scene...two dead people in the visitation rooms...two dead people in embalming room ...two dead people in the dressing room....a room full of caskets....a room full of urns...and a creaky old funeral home. And the dark...

I sit in the office and it is (pardon the expression) dead quiet. And sometimes I hear whispers (Thaddie) or a car back fire, or a police car zoom by with light and sirens on. Sometimes just bumps from the backroom. Water heater or Jason from Friday the 13th? How in the hell am I supposed to know if it is the dead guy coming off the table to slit my throat or not?

So, every night when I lock up I turn the lights off in the embalming room first, then the visitation room and I try to never, ever look at the corpse, and when I do I swear my heart is going to come out of my chest, but I look away and carry on. Lights out. Whew! Then the office , then the rest of the funeral home and I dart to the back door in the dark. Again, I never ever go back in after the door is locked...but once I left a half eaten hamburger on the front desk and knew the Undertaker would kill "me." So, I called a friend and said,

"Okay, I have to go back in and I am breaking my cardinal rule. If I go missing it means a zombie ate me."

"Well, keep me on the line and don't be scared," my friend says.

My heart is pounding, my palms are wet and sweat has popped out on my upper lip. I am scared as hell. I put the key in and click. It's the loudest click I have ever heard. And I open the door. A single light is on in the waiting area up by the front office. Other than that it is pitch black. I know there are two dead people to my right and two car wreck victims in the embalming room one with half of his face gone and a couple of elderly folks in the dressing room. I think I'm going to pass out.

"You there?" my friend says.

I pee my pants a little. "Yes."

"You okay?"

"No." I knew I was near death. As in knew I was going to be brutally murdered not that I was actually close to a dead person.

"Just run up there and grab your hamburger and run out."

So, I start to run toward the hamburger and guess what? Yep, just like in the horror movies, my ass falls down in the dark and my purse goes flying and scatters everywhere. I drop the phone and the battery flies across the room and I am disconnected from my last bit of hope. I am there alone on the floor of the dark funeral home. I just know I am dead so I start crawling toward the closest light switch and pray. "God, if you are real, please help me."

I scream when the lights come on and cover my head from the impending zombie attack...when what do I hear???

The Undertaker.

"Thaddie, what the hell are you doing?"

I open one eye slowly and realize how completely ridiculous I must look right now.

"Ummmm...I left something in the office," I say. And start gathering the contents of my purse.

"Do I smell a hamburger?" was his reply.

The Undertakes Says...

2008-12-03T17:09:00.000-08:00

The Undertaker once told me not to write about the funeral home on my blog because the business that takes place in the funeral home should stay there. For a couple of years I respected his wishes and for a couple of years some the funniest fucking shit has happened so I can no longer restrain myself from writing and sharing it with whoever happens to stumble across my little land of death in cyberspace. Boy, do I ever have some stories to tell and they are bubbling up like witches brew ready to boil over.

I work for a small funeral home in a well-to-do Midwestern United States town. On the side bar you are welcome to read about the cast of characters that I work with, it pretty much tells all. We probably average about 4 to 6 funeral a week. I say average because we can go from having 10 funerals in one week to having none the next. I like to say those are the "dead" times. Haha!

Planning a funeral is much like planning an elaborate wedding in 3 days while everyone cries. Please don't think of me as morbid because truly I am not, but after 6 years of seeing the same old thing and hearing the message of salvation 17,000 different ways I am a little numb. It is like going to church 4 days a week and hearing the same old message...I suppose it is sort of like a Baptist church service because it is basically the same message different preacher...you get my drift. It truly gets old after about the fourth time in one week. I find myself rolling my eyes a lot from my post up behind the sound board. Sometimes I just want to shut down the whole board and tell the preacher that we have a power outage. Who honestly wants to hear some old preacher going on and on about if you ever want to see your loved one again you should get saved here and now. Truly no one at a funeral actually wants to be there.

Secondly, no one ever gets "saved" at a funeral, not that I have ever seen anyway. But, God love those preachers for trying. I suppose they realize that is the only time they will ever get some of the morons who show up to a funeral in an actual church.

Anyway, again the cast of characters are on the sidebar...learn them....love them....hate them...want to hug them...want to slap them....get to know them....god knows I do.

And welcome...as an old Scottish Proverb says, "Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead."