i didn't know they grind up cremains.....

[bettyellen]

i mean, i guess it doesn't bother me much. the blender noise is kinda weird. but it's better than getting a big rattling box back. right?

[progmom]

1. um

everything ok in your world?

[sundog]

6. no shit

:wtf:

:P

[bettyellen]

8. it a doc on unclaimed people- this poor old man who lived in a little

slummy apt was giving 1/2 his income to a homeless shelter. 175 a week out of 350. how sweet is that? its weird, all these city workers going through their stuff to take it to auction. but at least they found nice things like that.
i didn't expect the grinder though. ick.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

28. I've seen that documentary before

I didn't know about the grinder until then, either. Not that I expect to care when my day of grinding comes, but it was a surprise.

I was glad they showcased that man. He may not know it, but many people have grieved his passing now. He deserved that.

[Floogeldy]

2. They have to.

It is impossible to burn a human body until it turns into dust or ashes.

Not that I've tried, lately.

B-)

[KitchenWitch]

3. BS

we all know you have a crematorium in your basement! :rofl:

[benburch]

5. Yeah, but he didn't pay the gas bill.

Now he just buries them in his crawl space.

[Floogeldy]

19. I'm too lazy to bury

I'd rather steal to buy a barrel and some kerosene!

B-)

[Floogeldy]

11. What?

This basement?



You silly willy. That's a pizza oven!

B-)

[KitchenWitch]

13. Suuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre

:rofl:

[bettyellen]

4. yeah, the bones sort of rattled me.....

[DS1]

7. I've told you before, switch to Metamucil

[bettyellen]

10. i want nothing blended for a while, seriously.

unless you have a frozen margarita on you....

[Bouncy Ball]

9. Yep, they talked about that on that show

where they feature mortuary students or something. Can't think of the name of it. I didn't know it until then. I want to be cremated and so does my husband. That's the way to go, I think.

I asked my husband "Hey where would you want your ashes scattered, because I'm not keeping your ass in a jar on the mantle?" and he said "I won't give a shit, I'll be dead."

[progmom]

12. very enlightened of him

i think i feel the same way.

though the romantic in me would like to imagine my ashes scattered somewhere significant...

[Bouncy Ball]

14. ...

I want to have a bowl of my ashes at the service with tiny plastic spoons and baggies with a sign reading "Take a bit of Bouncy Ball and scatter her on your next vacation! She always wanted to travel!" but I've been informed that's a bit morbid and no one will let me do it.

Huh, whatever.

[progmom]

17. brilliant!!

i love it.
:bounce:

[Floogeldy]

21. You scared me there for a second

I thought you were going to say bowls, spoons, milk and sugar.

B-)

[Bouncy Ball]

22. I WOULD be the sugar, sugar.

:smooch:

[MrSandman]

15. I saw a price list recently...

$80 for a corrugated cardboard box. Who knew?

[notadmblnd]

16. I paid $800.00 for the polished brass urn

my husband is in. There was also a fee to rent a coffin for his service. Cremation is cheaper but not by much. All total I paid just under $6000.00 for my husbands funeral. If I had buried him the price probablby would have doubled. I will be cremated too, my son can then do what he wants with us.. scatter us or display us on a shelf, I really don't care.

[yellowdogintexas]

25. it all depends on how you do it. My aunt's cremation was $700

total. Including the sealed brass box.

This was through a cremation society in Oklahoma where she lived.
The price included: retreival of her body from the nursing home where she lived, the cremation itself, the bronze box. I had to pay $20 extra for a couple of death certificates.

If you go to a regular funeral home and they do everything, plus hold the services for you, order flowers, etc etc., then it can cost a lot more.

The next time I go to Kentucky, we will have a graveside service and put her remains next to her husband's (also cremated and in a small brass box) in our family's plot.

I am definitely looking into the local cremation societies here in FW to see how they do things, putting all the stuff in order and pre paying it, for my husband and myself. Then our daughter can do whatever she likes ...scatter them, make them into diamonds, plant them in a coral reef to help start new coral...sink them in the family plot in KY..up to her. Our church is putting in a sort of chapel/meditation area for cremated remains ..which cuts out the need to have the remains buried.

[BiggJawn]

18. I told my daughter "You'd BETTER burn my ass to a CRISP when I kick!"

I had just finished an afternoon using the phrase "Soap Mummy" for a search term....

Ewwch!

I also told her which 2 shipwrecks I want to be scattered over.
No service with me in attendence, no embalming, no fancy coffin. get a pine box from the nice folks up in Goshen. I don't care what I'm wearing when they slide me into the toaster, either. Take the money you cheat Hildenbrand out of and throw a nice party.

[Bouncy Ball]

24. I don't want any embalming or viewing either.

If you aren't being viewed, there's no need for embalming if you are getting cremated. Just one more thing to pay for.

I want the MOST tightwaddest death EVER.

Hmmm, maybe my daughter should just set my body out in the woods and let birds peck at me.

I won't care.

[BiggJawn]

31. Funerals are for the living, anyway...

And I have a strange attitude about Death. I dunno, maybe it's because Death is NATURAL?

Nobody gets out alive. I'm a Skeptical Atheist, so there's no tunnel of light with some faceless being inviting me to pull His finger, like in a Chick Tract, no "Great Beyond", no "Heaven", and "Hell" is here on Earth.

Anyway, I won't give a crap about what they do to me after I'm dead.
Think I'll be "looking down" going "Oy! They didn't buy me the $15,000 Casket!"? No.

I'll be DEAD.

[Book Lover]

20. And it's damn heavy, too

I was surprised at how heavy the box was...

[OldLeftieLawyer]

23. Every time ...........

I had to take the ashes of one of my clients out to the place they'd designated for the scattering - out along the Blue Ridge, at the Chesapeake, the Atllantic Ocean, places like that - a breeze came up and I ended up with someone smeared all over my clothes.

Early on, though, I learned to hold my breath and close my eyes.

Being a lawyer - it's nothing but glamour.

[Book Lover]

27. That happened to me when I scattered

my mom's ashes, too. Boy, Miss Manners never said anything about *that*, eh?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

29. Did you know

that when you take a coat to the cleaners', you have to tell them that the smudges are human remains? There's a specific chemical they use just for that item.

Ditto semen.

Don't ask.

[Book Lover]

30. Amazing the things you pick up

during the ordinary course of events, eh? What a world...

[enlightenment]

26. When my granny died, in 1984, she wanted to be

cremated. So, the funeral home came and picked her up, leaving an 'appointment card' telling us when to come and get her.
Since my mom was pretty sad and my dad was kinda weirded out -- I got the nod.
So, down I trot to the funeral home. Now, I don't believe in funerals, they seem way too strange to me, so I'd never been in one of those places before.
I walk in; it looks like the interior of a Greek Temple, only done all in gray and bronze -- soft music, etc. In the dead center of the this huge round atrium sits a sort of gray and bronze lady at a gigantic bronze desk.
I walk, hesitantly by now, to the desk. The lady inquires, with a sympathetic smile and small tilt of the head, "how may I assist you?"
I pause -- wondering how to phrase it -- and blurt out, "I'm here to pick up my grandmother."
"And what is the lady's name?" "Muriel McKnight." "Ah! Muriel! She's right here."
At this point I have to refrain from spinning around, looking for her.
She reaches down, slides open one of the bottom drawers of the bronze desk, and retrieves a large shoe-box sized package, wrapped in heavy silver paper and tied with a bronze ribbon. (I kid you not)
It's granny.
I reach out to take the box, with one hand. She releases the box. FRANTIC juggling ensues, as I attempt to NOT drop granny on the shiny bronze desk, and scattering her before my mother has the chance. Shes heavy, but she doesn't rattle a bit!
I thank odd gray and bronze lady, and politely bolt for the door.
At the car, I hesitate. Should she ride in the front? The back? On the floor? I decide on the back -- safely belted in.
We drive home, together.

Postscript: My mom and dad drive to the mountains, where mom will scatter her mother. As an only child, their relationship had been very close -- but often very contentious. Lot's of bickering.
Mom picks a nice looking hillside. Dad pulls over, and mom takes granny up the hill (undoubtedly muttering about the hike).
As dad watches, mom carefully unwraps the silver paper and removes a plastic bag filled with granny. She stands, opens the bag, pauses, checks the wind, and begins to sprinkle granny to her next life.
The wind changes, suddenly.
Mom gets a face full.
After a moment, she returns to the car, opens the door, and gets in. My father is frozen dumb with horror and the anticipation of how this will affect my mom.
She turns to him, breaks a shit-eatin' grin in an ashy face and says:
"Damn! She got the last word!"

I really miss that lady.

B-)