black humor | Saying nothing in particular

I’ve been getting prepaid cremation offers since I was in my early forties. At that time I had no extra money sitting around with which to secure the “peace of mind” of knowing that my “remains would not be a burden” to my loved ones. However, had I been truly budget conscious I would have skimped and saved and grabbed up one of those suckers. Cremation costs have quadrupled since the 1990s. I could have locked in a $700 no frills trip to the crematorium!

But, is it really a good idea to prepay for cremation services decades before the main event? Sure, someone will save a bundle but it won’t be you! Besides, who’s to say there won’t be a newer more efficient method of body vaporization by the time you kick the buckle?

Imagine this scenario:

May 5, 2030

Funeral Director to the daughter of the deceased: Sorry for your loss, Bridey

Bridey: Well, she was one hundred and thirty years old. Thank goodness she prepaid for her cremation. Otherwise I don’t know how we’d —“

Funeral Director: Thank you for bringing in the original receipt. Heavens! It’s been decades since we dealt in paper.

Bridey: Mother never did trust the “internets” as she called them.

FD: I’m sure you realize that bio-disposal technology has greatly evolved since the 1990s. A process that used to take several hours, and meant you had to wait at least day for the processed remains of your loved one, now takes mere seconds! That means you could walk out of here with your mother’s ashes in less than an hour! Of course —

Bridey: You want more money.

FD: Nitey Time Mortuaries will stand by our original commitment but we phased out our old equipment years ago and so, if you choose not to upgrade, we will have to transport your mother’s remains to Reno Auto Wrecking for processing.

Bridey: Reno Auto Wrecking?

FD: Yes, they bought the old machines for parts but I believe they still have one intact crematorium which they use for … well you probably don’t want to know. Didn’t your mother once worked there?

Bridey: Yes she was their bookkeeper but —

FD: I’m sure they’d treat her remains with dignity and respect. However, we are prepared to give you a huge discount on our newer services because she was one of our legacy customers….”

Bridey: Yeah, I bet you are.

Despite my snark, the few times I’ve dealt with funeral directors they’ve been wonderful. But knowing my kids, they’ll have my remains composted into a cubic foot of nutrient rich soil for a quick and dirty green burial. It’s fine with me I just don’t wanna to know the process! I’m sure it involves all sorts of creepy crawlies. I mean, it must, right? If I understand the composting process, my body will basically become a cubic foot of worm poop. Well, who knows? I may have started out that way.

Now onto those daily offers to learn the “humorous, inspiring and practical” side of downsizing for my ultimate transition to the Life Plan Community of HumanGood. I can’t imagine anything humorous about throwing out grandma’s treasures. Obviously I’ve got a long way to go.

Because it remains too hot to work in the garden, I’ve been holed up indoors watching movies. Some are so forgettable that they’re just background noise while I work on other projects, however lately I stumbled upon two in a row that addressed how easily people suspend reason for blind faith. First, I should say that my spiritual beliefs are based on personal experience and would probably shock my agnostic and atheist friends but I keep them to myself. Nor do I want to discuss anyone else’s beliefs – unless they want to tell me about a UFO or BigFoot sighting, of course.

Now to the movies I saw. The first was simply called Bernie. I’d seen clips of this movie before but wasn’t interested because of the synopsis: “A Texas town comes to the defense of a mortician’s assistant who shot an heiress in the back and then stuffed her body in a freezer.” Sounds like a slasher movie, right?

Actually, it’s based on an incident that took place in 1998 in Carthage Texas. Because I knew that going in, I assumed that all of the interviews in the movie were interviews with the townspeople of Carthage. Then I recognized a couple of famous actors. Whoops.

Probably not the actual prosecutor in Carthage Texas.

The story’s a familiar one: a young man becomes the companion of a wealthy old lady. Eventually he gains access to her finances, then grows tired of her clinginess and shoots her in the back. However, there’s a twist. After the murder, he uses her money to become the town’s most popular philanthropist. They all love Bernie! Even when the body’s found and Bernie confesses, they refuse to believe he could have actually committed murder. Perhaps because no one liked the old woman, or perhaps because they’ve benefitted from her murder. One by one they look into the camera and say things like: “It’s up to God to judge, not me” and “I don’t think even Jesus could change my mind [about Bernie’s innocence].”

The case became the first in Texas history where the prosecutor requested a change of venue because of bias in favor of the defendant. (BTW – he was convicted in a different county)

The second movie was Inherit the Wind, a fictionalization of the Scopes (Monkey) Trial of 1925. A teacher is arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution to a group of southern high school students, igniting a wave of hatred and threats of violence. The defense attorney, played by Spencer Tracey, attempts to argue to the court and the town that God’s greatest gift to mankind is the ability to wonder and if children are told it is a sin to wonder, civilization will spin in reverse.

Seeing these two movies almost back to back answered a question that has bothered me since the election. How can so many people who claim to be Christians back a man who espouses a doctrine of isolationism, mocks handicapped people and brags he can shoot people on Fifth Avenue and still be worshipped? And not just support him, but with a blinding certainty that is frightening to those of us who want to retain our freedom to wonder.

It’s like a character in Bernie said “I don’t even think Jesus could change my mind. . .” Not even Jesus.“Darwin had it wrong. Man’s still an ape,” Gene Kelly as E. K. Hornbeck of the Baltimore Herald to Spencer Kelly in Inherit the Wind.