Sunday, January 02, 2005

My aunt and uncle apparently suggested to my mother that I should buy their cemetery plot from them. They are moving to Colorado, and apparently will be buried in God's country. My aunt is being cremated; she will be buried in her husband's casket. If she dies first, that's fine, but I do not envy the man whose job is to reunite her with her husband should he go first.

I think the offer to sell me the plot is a face-saving mood, should family members show outrage after learning they sold their plot, located next to my mother's parents. I personally don't care. And I won't be buying the plot; I intend to be cremated in a frigidaire box. After reading Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death, I'd be reluctant to make any pre-paid arrangements (though I suppose since the plot has been purchased already, the damage has been done). And if I was concerned about my final resting place, I doubt I'd want to be next to by grandparents (no offence). Besides, as I just recently discovered, there's isn't the best neighborhood. The neighborhood kids steal stuff right off your porch, as it were.

Of course, this is all academic, as I have no intention of ever dying. Death is just something that happens in the movies. And TV, I suppose. Which reminds me, watching the Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel, I saw "I Sing the Body Electric" for the upteenth time, and realized that is a really fucked up story. Basically, the girl doesn't like the robot mother, because she's afraid it will die like her real mother. But the robot mother gets hit by a car and is unhurt, and so the girl loves her, because she will never die. So the moral, as I see it, is, "Feel free to love someone, as long as they will never, ever die." Words to live by. A somwhat darker philosophy by which to view Small Wonder reruns.

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