So I bust in and there is the perquisite mourners circle and there was Ritchie who was no longer Richie. And my $100.00 was no longer my $100.00 so I take a shot and start rifling through Richie’s pockets. Too late Aunt Sophie beat me too it. The bitch was a bigger thief than Ritchie. The circle’s eyes widen in horror as I start punching Ritchie’s corpse and then they start screaming, all except Aunt Sophie, the bitch. I turned to them all pissed off and say: “What am I doing… hurting his feelings? The fuckers dead!”

So I book and start thinking about death.
I’m like everyone else; I don’t want to think about it. Death is like the fart in Church, no one wants to admit it’s there but we all can smell it.

The problem with death is it reminds us that we will all eventually be strapped to that one man seat. Death is the ultimate one man show, no supporting acts, strictly solo. We are so frigged about death we want to get rid of the body as soon as possible:

“Get that friggin stiff outta here!”
“But Ward! It’s the Beaver.”
“I don’t give a shit June, tell Wally to drag it out to the garage and call those Undertaker creeps.’

Undertakers– Nice name– I use to think Surgeons were fucked up people but Undertakers got them beat. Yea something definitely creepy about a vocational choice involving dead people. “How do you make a living?”

The first Undertakers were family who washed and cleaned the stiff and prepared for the ritual mourning of the dead. You had to make it quick, things can get smelly. The problem was no one was sure if the person was really, really dead. I mean it looks dead, but…

That was the problem, history is replete with stories of the dead coming back to life and a universal fear that is cross cultural is being buried alive. That will keep you up at night might even stop you from dying.

The first Undertakers were Fred and Ernie. They volunteered since they had no life and no one wanted the dead end job. The first order of business was to establish was it dead? So the slap test was developed.
“You want to take first shift Ernie?”
So Ernie starts slapping the shit out of the corpse.
“Seems dead”
Fred starts slapping the shit out of the corpse.
“Sucker is dead to me”
“We got to be sure this time can’t have a repeat of last Saturday”
“Old man Grady getting out of the coffin was not a good career fuzzy”
Luckily Aunt Martha had a heart attack so they could at least have a wake.”
“Yea, the keg was already tapped would have been a shame to waste it.”

That was the problem and it was Fred who had the solution.
“Eureka! Be right back!”
Fred gets a shop vac and evacuates the corpse’s bodily fluids
Ernie’s eyes widen in amazement.
Ernie’s riffs on Fred’s insight.
“We can put Uncle Bob’s special sauce in the stiff”
“What’s in it?”
“I think formaldehyde, methanol, ethanol and a whole bunch of nasty.”

They did it! If the sucker wasn’t dead before it was now and the stiff keeps for at least a week. The modern day Wake party was born. And we owe it all to Fred and Ernie.

Now leave me alone and stop making me think about this shit. I hate thinking about death.

Think I’ll watch a horror flick… Cool, George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” works for me…