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I don't know about you, but I've totally got my Home-going planned and notarized.  I felt the notarization was necessary because currently I don't trust my kid to follow through on my wishes...what with her rebellion and all.  Obviously I want to be cremated.  I highly doubt my A.D.D. meds will be available in the afterlife, so there's a good chance I'm not gonna sit still for nothing.  In my mind, I'm seeing ribbon dancers, a fab DJ who knows how to blend '99 Problems' and Florence Welch like a studied chemist.  All you can eat buffet with nothing but Popsicles and Pixie Stix.  But in reality, I fear it'll be more like "His Eye Is On the Sparrow" and bad party mints.

I don't ordinarily sit around musing on death and mints.  But last week the spouse came across a television program that prompted him to slap his knee, lurch forward and holler, "Oh put your needle and thread down, woman, and come HERE!  They went and got stupid over there in Dallas and have commenced to havin' themed funerals!  Oh!  Lookit!  There's a man....he's....he say he ain't putting on that gingerbread head for not a thang!"

So.  I put down my needle and thread with much disinterest.  Five seconds later, I reared back in a gelatinous brew of horror and mockery.  Because what to my wondering eyes did appear?  Three men in white suits dressed like reindeer hauling the dearly departed  up the aisle in a hand-painted Christmas sleigh of wonder.  Apparently he really liked Christmas, so his family thought it'd be fitting to go with the Christmas themed home-going provided by Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas, Texas.

You know those sketchy Mall santas who make you want to check the national registry before letting your kid go near him?  Okay, imagine that magnified to the fifth power of eighteen twenty-two.  Now imagine him mounted on the back of the sleigh acting like his was bull-whipping the reindeer men.  Then behind HIM were two scantily clad hoochie mamas and four odd elf-men.  The whole hot mess was unfathomable.  There were real goats and alpacas in the sanctuary trying to know each other in the biblical sense while the words of fond memories and happy times were being read.

But the part that made me slowly pick up my cell phone and hover over "Behavioral Health" in my contact list was the snowman and gingerbread man sitting side by side in a pew.  Like just sitting there staring off into space.  Like maybe they were smoking a fatty up under those rental heads. Have you ever laughed so hard that no sound came out your mouth and you peed in your pants?  Not a little trickle....I'm talking a full-on wet your britches.  Yeah, that happened when I saw the "Professional Mourner" get up and start having an epileptic seizure about the time the goat busted loose and took to running up the aisle like it was a holiness convention unto the Lord.

I know you think I'm lying.  I know you're saying to yourself..."Naw."  But I'm saying to you here today, Yes!  Yes, my people!  TLC done went and brought down the gauntlet of crazy!

Might want to go get yourself a spare pair 'o drawers there, friends.  You're 'bout to get some joy.