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Chapter 1
wherein Bill Clinton attends a funeral, trauma is induced, and hilarity ensues
“Hearse rental? Forget it! With all these fees you stick us with, it’s like we’re the ones that died! Bill, get the van.” I salute my father with the traditional “single finger by the dawn’s early light.” Pulling the van around to the front of the funeral home, it becomes increasingly obvious that this was a delicate procedure being pulled off with little to no delicacy. All my male relatives and some of the huskier females lug the casket through the parlor and into the trunk of the Astrovan. I like to assume that they left most of the casket sticking out over the tailgate so that Aunt Myrtle could breathe. I also like to assume people have a clue as to what they’re doing. That usually makes an a** of me.
I slowly drive down the residential streets, Ol’ Myrtle’s precarious position becoming more dangerous with every speed bump. Luckily, I’m driving slow enough to get rammed by the cars behind me, pushing the casket back to it’s original position. Arriving at the cemetery, I’m glad to get a chance to say goodbye to the aunt I had never really talked with prior to her demise.
Curiosity begins to set in after a brief hour of waiting for my family to arrive. It’s common knowledge that Myrtle died in a car crash, but I can’t help but wonder if she’s really in that lavish wooden monstrosity. What happened next was a blur that ended with me screaming girlishly behind an old fir tree. I watched as neighbors came out of their houses to look around and see what the fuss was about. When their eyes fall on a teenaged boy screaming like a ninny, their reactions never vary. They go back in their house, and resume watching reality television.
After two short hours of induced psychosis, a taxi pulls up to the cemetery gate. “Bill!” my father’s voice scolds. “Where have you been? You kept your family waiting!” I protest that I, being only one person, could not be in two places at once, and didn’t want to leave Myrtle alone. “The old bag’s going to be alone for years, son. You should have tended to your live family.” While his argument makes a type of sense, I’m still aghast.
The crane lowers the coffin into the ground as my family cries the obligatory tears. A support cable snaps, the box is opened wide as it swings, and Myrtle’s remains are dumped unceremoniously into the dirt hole. I can’t help but get the feeling I’ll be describing this to a psychologist someday.
 Kaiki · Wed Sep 06, 2006 @ 04:54pm · 0 Comments |
