Hello Death!.....How you doooin?

This is exactly what you think it is, you've seen it all now! These are all undertakers, well mortuary workers/grave diggers from the US making a calander for charity. All I can say is, ala Bart Simpson, "Hubba, Hubba!" Oh my God! Imagine going to your great aunt Gretta's funeral and staring at those pecs under the undertakers (probably called Brett, or Chad) shirt, as he carried the coffin up to the alter......Now Remember my family are undertakers, my younger brother is about as buff as they get....and that's not too buff! I did have the experince of my parents trying to set my up with a young embalmer when I was 17, he was 20, good career, funny guy, nice car, I just couldn't do it! I mean an embalmer, every goth girls wet dream, but there was something really unhappy about him, deeply unhappy and we never took it anywhere, my parents were disappointed. Two years later at 22 he commited suicide.

So I've decided to share some of my lighter stories about death with you today, I have been feeling down, and when I feel down I don't suffer from bloggers block, I can write, but what I write will reflect my state of mind, and I think everyone must be sick of me lamenting my fate, as a friend From the west loves to say "Would you get down off that cross, we need the wood!" So I posted my feeling on my own blog, gave the house a quick clean, put the baba down for a nap and here I am armed with my mug of green tea and my amusing (fingers crossed) stories about the darker side of life.

Now I have to warn you if you are squeamish i wouldn't read on....

Exploding bodies! We have all heard the stories, are they true? Yes, now as embalming and refridgeration have improved things it doesn't happen as often as it did but it does happen. Usually it's a significantly overweight person, the gases caused from decomposing in an unembalmed body need to escape, so if you needed to release gas from your body you'd burp or parp, same thing with a body, but as you can imagine it can be much smellier and much messier, in some cases leaking out of the coffin, one story my dad tells of them carrying the coffin on their shoulders down from the alter and "seepage" occuring! This escaping gas can also result in the bodies looking like they are moving, and of course making noise, nothing better than the priest in the middle of a decade of the rosary stopping dead because the body is making gurgling noises!

Again, my next story is about the overweight, sorry! Last year my dad was on a removal of a body from a house, a man had died at home, he weighed about 30 stone, it was a small corporation two up two down house, the coffin wouldn't fit inside the front door, never mind up the stairs, they had two options, try to haul the body down stairs in as dignified a manner as possible and then put him into the coffin outside the front door, or get a glazier to come and remove the glass from the downstairs window, put him into the coffin in the house and then remove him through the window and replace the glass.....imagine you have just lost a family member and you have to cope with your neighbours watching that carry on, they decided to go with the window option in the end. They are having more difficulties with bigger coffins in recent years, also their backs are taking the brunt of it!

Then there are the other stories....the disturbing ones, spoken about in hushed tones, the ones as children we weren't allowed hear, the interfering with bodies stories, by members of staff, the guy who was fired because he was found in a compromising position (more than once-so he had gotten away with it a couple of times) with bodies. There used to be flats above most of the funral homes for security, and the tennants would have keys in case of emergencies. There were the students from a very reputable college, I won't name it, but I will say the funeral home was on Thomas street, these students thought (proably after several quarts of Buckfast) that putting the bodies into interesting positions and then taking photographs would be fun! Now incase you think it's odd to have security worries about funeral parlours they actually are at very high risk of being broken into, one of my dad's duties as a keyholder is to go out to one if the alarm goes off and the gardai are called, certain elements of society think it's fun to break in and move bodies, couple of times stealing them.....I know bizarre!

Anyway, having read back over my post I don't think it's funny, and I'm worried now that you guys will be even more worried about dying, but sure when you are dead you are dead and whether you are left peacefully in your coffin or taken on a joy ride to Clonee it doesn't matter, except in those rare cases when you aren't really dead........But we won't talk about that now, will we?