The High Cost of Dying

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Amid Judy (@JudyEv )’s conversation about her beautiful, handcrafted wooden dining room suite we got to talking about caskets. That brought to mind the major scam we have in America known as the funeral industry. Nobody oversees the funeral industry. They’re self-regulating. And you know that they’re going to regulate to their benefit. JJ pointed out that vaults aren’t a “law,” yet the cemetery sure makes you believe they are. They also make you believe that it’s illegal to “make your own casket” (which I doubt because of the Amish and Jewish beliefs in simplicity in the funeral). No, as Robert Klein once said about the oil companies, it’s supply and demand: “We have all the supply so we can demand whatever the (bleep) we want!” The sad thing is that most people only get hit with all of this at the worst possible time in their lives: the death of a loved one. The funeral homes hit them, and hit them hard, with all of these “requirements” that may or may not really be laws about what is required. I had to laugh when I was told that I needed a complete change of clothing for my mom’s body. I thought (but didn’t say), “Hey, she went commando all her life, and NOW you’re demanding underwear????” (Yes, the funeral home said that the body must have underwear on.) Back in the old days, newspapers ran obituaries for individuals. When people wanted to start “getting creative” the newspapers said, “Hey, why have we been doing this for free all these years?” My mom’s newspaper obituary was nearly eighty dollars in 2007. And no, it wasn’t a novella: it simply listed facts like where she worked, church membership, survivors, memorial gifts. I don’t’ know how much more they wanted for my dad’s in 2018 (he was married, and I never asked his wife about those things). There was a line in the Beatles’ “Tax Man” about “those who die” need to “declare the pennies on your eyes.” That is, if the funeral home hasn’t demanded them in payment first! John Prine’s take on things: