The Morgue

Morning all! Visit to the funeral home was interesting, but not as fun as it could have been as a) there were no bodies on the premises, so the funeral directors didn't get bombed on Jagermeister and start waltzing around with stiffs as I had been hoping they would; and b) I ate far too much at lunchtime and had terrible wind. Have you ever farted in a morgue? I have.

(On that note, I remember the first time a relative of mine, who shall remain unidentified, had an attack of wind. "Ally," she said, "there's something wrong with me." "What sort of something?" "I feel really sick, and like someone's twisting my insides. But every so often I fart, and then I feel better." She was really quite concerned. "Um," I said, "did you eat anything weird today?" "I ate a whole bag of licorice." "You have wind." "No I don't! It's much more serious than that." "No...no, it's wind.")

We arrived at the funeral home in the middle of some hideously dull speeches, but when those were done we grabbed some wine (free!) and went on a tour of the building. Too many white lilies. They had the hearses out, which gave everyone an opportunity to ask stupid questions ("That one's big, is it for two people?") and make comments about shagging in hearses. I bet that at some stage, every one of those hearses has been occupied by people doing the naughty.

We went from there into a warehouse full of coffins, where presumably your shade can lurk about and nudge your grieving relatives away from the crappy eco-friendly models (unvarnished box with rope handles, looks like the sort of thing you'd pop a penniless surfer in) and towards the proper big fuck-off coffins (sorry, caskets - undertakers are now funeral directors, and coffins are now caskets) made out of dark wood with huge silver handles on the sides. I expressed my deep desire to have a whacking great coffin, and everyone thought I was a) morbid and b) extravagant ("It's just going to rot in the ground anyway.") "But it's about the drama of the funeral," I said, which did not help.

Then we went and looked in the morgue - was just like the ones on CSI, but smaller and without the little body safes in the wall. Instead of those there was a great big walk-in freezer, not unlike the ones you see in restaurant kitchens. It had "NAME" written on the door in permanent marker, although someone had obviously tried to wipe this off prior to our arrival. I wanted to look in the freezer, but was quietly reminded that I was representing the business, etc. Same went for asking questions about the technical details of the embalming process. Sigh.

So we ate some little pies and had a glass of wine and went home.