Pssst. Forget keeping you alive. Trees are here to ensure you have a shiny death.
Death Expenses
At one point or another we all deal with it and we all have it in our future, not a cheery thought or easy in any way, but you can bet that since it is certain, someone somewhere is going to capitalize on it. And, as we all know, many surely do.
Whether you see it coming or not, grieving takes place once death occurs and then the vultures strike. Sadly, it isn't actual vultures. That would be cheaper and maybe even better for the environment. Hmm, maybe just cheaper. Who wants skeletons lying around everywhere?
First come your options. You can have them buried or cremated. But the you only applies in the checkbook, credit card, bank account, or drug money. Hey, when you're hard up for a place to hide it, have to make due. Remind me never to touch money again. So you pick. Your pick is the casket.
Look at them all displayed out. They are oh so great. Hell, many are nicer than your first apartment. I'm sure those who are dead with no life left in them and who's body will rot away are going to appreciate that. And just for all the tree huggers, I'm sure the trees gladly gave up their life so you can coddle the dead. Bah, they start at a mere $5000. That's nothing to show the dead you care. Even though the dead can't see any longer from their eyes.
Next you have to have an open casket so all their loved ones can say goodbye. You just have to. So let's rip everything out and shove a bunch of crap in them to preserve them and make them look all pretty. Hey, it works for the brain-dead Hollywood bimbos, may as well do it when the rest of their body dies off as well. It only tacks on a bunch bit more.
Now you have to have a place to view. Our home is all geared up for it. We'll make all the preparations. Don't worry, that is all factored in. And oh, you still have to have some gathering afterwards, we can have it here or recommend a good caterer, for which we may or may not get a kickback from, and take all the work out of your hands. Aren't we nice? Our fee is our reward.
And then we have to have the hole dug, your plot has to be paid for, your headstone must be there, and you really, really have to have a shiny one. 1000 years from now when no one knows who you ever were and you would know no one at all, they still need to know you were here. It's how you leave your mark. It must be done.
Oh, you wanted to be cremated? Well then we have a fancy box just for the ashes. And we charge extra if you want the ashes burned separate from others. You just must sit them on the mantle. And this box would look great. I mean trees died for your dead, if that isn't sacrifice, we don't know what is. So don't let their sacrifice be for nothing. Sacrifice your money and common sense to us and buy this shiny box for what results into dusty kitty litter. Do it before your grief wears off and you realize you can get the same thing from stuffing the dusty kitty litter into a coffee can.
And the other stuff still holds. You still need a gathering and, and... What? Don't bring math into this! Get back here!
Let's say that you are on the high end and cost $500 a month for groceries. That includes TP and all that stuff. That is $6000 for an ENTIRE year to keep yourself fed. $6000!!!! ENTIRE YEAR! ALIVE! 365 DAYS! And that is rather high in many cases. Yet, most of the time, if one gets suckered by the funeral homes, sentiment, and the way things must be done, it costs more than that for you to die than for a full year of you eating to stay alive. Does that make logical sense? Oh, but it is how it is. It is how it must be. Blah blah blah.
Yes, you need professionals of some sort to dispose of the body in some way, or we'd have dead people buried on many a property. Hmm, suppose that is one way to bring down property value and afford a house. BUT spending that kind of money just to die. Pfffft. The dead don't care if they are in a fancy box or a box you nailed together from sticks in the woods. They don't care if they are sat on a shelf in a fancy box or thrown to the wind from a coffee can. They are dead! Of course maybe Great Aunt Ruthie still wants to look good and paid in advance. Hey, she cared when she was alive, but guess what? Not when dead still holds.
And this doesn't even include estate stuff, hospital bills, and all other various stuff one may not learn of beforehand. People can spend upwards of $15,000 or more just getting it all taken care of. Granted if life insurance is in place or money had been sat aside in the estate to cover such things, great. Go to it.
But when did it become fact that this stuff is oh so needed and unicorns are fake? Funerals are the last great con that get you even when you think you're finally out. They pull you back in and then bury you in a fancy box where you can rot in peace. Not to mention violate you in many a way to make you look all pretty for those few who really give a damn, those many who are only there to be nice, and those few that hated you alive, but who say you were oh so great once you're dead.
Pfffft. Burn me, toss me in the litterbox, and be done with it. I'm dead. I won't care. Piddle on the ashes yourself for all I care. Maybe then my dusty kitty litter may float up and get in your mouth. Would suck on that apply? Last laugh?
Nope. Not struck down after typing this. I guess no ghosts or gods or whoever cares about funeral stuff. What was that? I hear it faintly. Bla...bla...bla...Oh. Blasphemy? Does that count coming from a funeral director who sells $5000 shiny boxes and goes to town up and in dead bodies? Nah, I think I'll take my chances with the unicorns.
Anything to add? Feel free at my pad.
It's an unfortunate part of 'life.' The best thing we can do for our loved ones is to arrange all of that ahead of time and leave detailed notes about what you want done.
ReplyDeleteYeah, have everything ready to go when one goes.
DeleteMaybe the best bet is to just go poof in a huge inferno when the meteor strikes Earth. Hmm. what are the odds?
ReplyDeleteOr an alien laser beam
DeleteA fine litter additive is quite okay with us!
ReplyDeleteThat additive could make it clump more
DeleteI agree with what Bijoux said. Take care of your own arrangements before you pass so others don't have to sort it out and try to figure what you wanted done. Its such an emotional time when a loved one passes that people sometimes make foolish decisions that cost thousands of dollars. Better to pre plan and not get sucked into high costs of disposing of a body that is dead for sure.
ReplyDeletebetty
Yeah, better to have it done so those left behind don't get sucked into added costs that aren't needed.
DeleteHitting home a bit hard right now, as I've recently made arrangements with the cemetery, the creamtorium etc for my Dad. He's 93, living in Assisted Living with extra help from Hospice. I truly thought he was going to pass about 2 wks ago and he's rallied a bit, but I wanted things in place anyway. It's terribly expensive, but we did find if you do not go through a funeral home, and deal directly with a creamtorium, the body does not have to be embalmed and it's much more affordable. We don't need an urn. Already have the one from Mom, it'a double we got when she passed. The headstone has already been purchased and engraved and paid for, so this time round we just need to have the engravers add his date when we take the ashes to them to be buried. This is all much more reasonable than what we did for Mom, but all of that...was really for Dad. It is indeed a process.
ReplyDeleteSandy's Space
A process indeed. Never easy no matter what. Expensive in many a way. Hopefully he continues to rally a bit more.
DeleteI want to be shot out of a cannon at Disney World.
ReplyDeleteI also don't want to be cremated.
Could splatter at the end
DeleteMy mom had a pre-planned funeral. She paid each month on it, picked out her own casket, set aside money for flowers, picked out everything she wanted and made a payment plan. Her plan stated that if she died before she got it paid off, the funeral home would pay the rest in full and they did. She only paid for half of it before she passed away and they picked up the rest and she got everything she wanted. You should have seen all the flowers. Death can be crazy expensive.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good way to go by the sounds of it. Live long enough you pay for it, if you don't then they pay for the rest. Crazy expensive every which way though.
DeleteMy f-in-law decided (after viewing possible burial places), Well that's it. I'm not going.
ReplyDeleteI'm going for cremation, seems cost effective. I did think about having someone put in the back of a pick-up, drive out to the desert, and roll out. My family didn't like that idea, so it got shelved.
haha good way for him to look at it.
DeleteThe desert idea sounds easy enough, vultures have to eat too.
I went through all that with my husband, and I've made it very clear to my boys, I hope, that I want no service of any kind, just put me in the box and I'll be happy cause I'll be in heaven with nobody gawking at me.
ReplyDeleteNo gawkers about, a win indeed.
DeleteI've told my family that I want to be cremated and buried at sea (it's even in my will. Look at me, all adulting and stuff, yo). The Navy will pick up the tab for taking my ashes out to sea (or Long Island Sound. Whatever). But, if they want to pay for something else, that's on them. What will I know? I'll be dead and, if the nuns spoke the truth, in Purgatory for the next thousand years or so.
ReplyDeleteGot the adulting all going on indeed. Hey, at least you'll be warm for 1000 years.
DeleteI have a good friend who stands funerals and helps take care of the grounds. She has been asked to do sales, which is very lucrative, but refuses. She also used the word vultures and said it's criminal how much they try to rip people off during one of the most vulnerable times in their life. :(
ReplyDeleteVultures seems to be the go to word for them. Takes a special kind of person I suppose. I found out recently about one guy who not only screwed people over but he stole from dead people. Pffft.
DeleteTraditional services are not for me. I don't want anyone looking at me and would prefer to just have my body go back to the earth to help plants and trees grow.
ReplyDelete~Jess
Sounds like a plan. Much better than in some fancy box that is essentially worthless to any body.
DeleteThe very last thing you need
ReplyDeleteWhen you’ve lost someone is greed
It makes the reality more difficult to bear
The worst part of grieving, I swear
Yep, greed is the last thing
DeleteAs they want you to give the dead bling
Dying is an expensive business. The vultures like to take advantage of people in their grieving state. Best thing to do if you can, is prepare for your own death and have it paid for so your loved ones don't have to.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that is the best thing to do indeed.
DeleteNot only do you have to deal with the funeral parlor vultures, some people deal with the family vultures as well once a loved one passes. It's such a sick, sad world.
ReplyDeleteUgg, yeah those family vultures that you barely ever see before sure make themselves known.
DeleteWowee Zowee, what did I step into here? haha. I have a good friend who worked at a funeral home for a few years doing everything from parking to helping with the embalming. He said to be cremated no matter what I do. After hearing the harrowing stories of embalming and the cost of caskets, etc I have decided he is right. Not to mention...I don't want everyone parading by my casket to look at my dead face. :) And it's not as expensive.
ReplyDeleteAll different things at our sea here and there haha Yep, right indeed. Burn and be done with it. Cheaper and no dead face for all to see.
DeleteYou nailed it, Pat! Death is an expensive business. Cremate me asap in a simple box and scatter me in the wind. Absolutely no viewing, thank you! My only request, for which I've left some money, is for my extended family to have one hell of a party in my memory in Nova Scotia in the summer following my death.
ReplyDeleteThat is not a bad request to leave. Scatter and go, works for us.
DeleteWould it be cheaper to be shot into space?
ReplyDeleteDepends on the shooter
DeleteHa. Perfect response, Pat.
DeletePeople don't like to think about funeral planning, but it's important to do it. It's always tough on a grieving family (obviously not at their best place emotionally) to be making decisions, especially expensive ones. My husband hates the idea of cremations but it's how I want my remains handled. We're going to plan ours all out so our kids don't have to worry about it. And pay for it too.
ReplyDeleteMy mom died when I was fourteen (complications from brain tumor surgery). She and my dad had discussed it, so he knew what she wanted. Her philosophy was that she didn't want to take from the living to give to the dead. I agree.
A great philosophy to have indeed. Having everything handled sure is the way too.
DeleteOpen casket or closed
ReplyDeletehidden vase or exposed
killed by a mishap or gun
Nothing sounds fun.
Nope, not so fun, unless you go out on top someone, or beneath...not picky.
DeleteI've buried a husband, father, and father-in-law. Each time I was responsible for planning the funeral. When my first hubby died, I was very young so I had no idea what I was doing and neither did the family member that was helping me (also young). We spent a fortune! Who has a payment plan for a funeral at 26? I did.
ReplyDeleteMy dad died nine months later. During that planning, I found out I had the "wrong" kind of funeral for my hubby. I had a Catholic one, he had converted to Protestant. Oops. What are ya gonna do? Anyway, dad's funeral was covered by a burial plan. Thank God!
Dad-in-law a few years later...not so much. They really know how to get hit you in the feels and it costs a fortune. As they say, funerals are for the living, not the dead.
Elsie
Yeah, they can sure get you when you are down. Prey on it. For the living indeed. When young none surely know many of the ins and outs of much. Experience is key, sadly. Wrong kind of funeral? Whoops.
DeleteThere's a cemetery in the mountains that's 'natural'. I don't think the coffin is much more than cardboard. It's a decomposing material and I believe they use goats to keep the grass down.
ReplyDeleteOn the groceries. We are up to around $500 a month. Over the last few years our cost has doubled and we don't shop at the high end grocery stores.
Hey, that sounds like a fine way for me. Cardboard and done. Yeah, groceries are ridiculous.
DeleteIt's good to be prepared but in the meantime "live long and prosper".
ReplyDeleteThat's Purrfect
Not So Sweet Toffee
Live on indeed and see what takes seed.
Delete