Dying to Get This Done!

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Most of this morning has been spent in a funeral home. More precisely, in the office of a funereal home. I’m doing my pre-planning. For about $9K I’m getting everything taken care of now. That includes opening the vault (I have a mausoleum), casket, service, and all the little things. I learned this from my dear mother of blessed memory. When she passed away all I had to do was take the clothes she was to buried in to the funeral home and pay for the obituary (which was about $80 then....the counselor said a newspaper obit is about $400 now). In contrast, my dad hadn’t done any of that, and as a result his widow was crying more about the bills than the loss of her husband. I don’t have many relatives, and this will be the responsibility of my brother or niece. That’s why I’m doing it. Also included in this is something that you would probably think is a terrific idea, given my travels: body return insurance. That means if something happens (God forbid) while I’m 2,000 miles from home my body will be returned to Louisville for interment. One of those things you think about when you turn 60. But consider how much it’s costing now, and how much it’ll cost in ten years, and it’s a bargain. As Robert Klein once joked, “Insurance is gambling: ‘I’ll bet you a hundred dollars a month till you die that you don’t die!’” This is a better kind of insurance! Elton John’s classic, “Funeral for a Friend/Loves Lies Bleeding,” the instrumental portion of which was Elton’s interpretation of what he’d like played at his funeral: