This'll really cement my reputation but I think we lost something when we started paying other people to bury our family members. A lot of people have real trouble just coming up with the $5 to $10 thousand.

When my dad died in 2000, my mom and I went to the funeral home to get everything arranged. He had bought in on some kind of plan so these were the guys we were bound to go with.

The front man was very smooth, a decent guy, but when they introduced us to the mortician, whoa man, she was a scary looking woman. I'm sure many, most morticians are fine people but this lady gave me the willies. Was way creepier looking than any woman on the Adam's family.

I've read about guys who built their father's coffin out of simple wood, and dug the hole themselves, with friends (would be hard to arrange the legality of that I'll bet). I heard one guy on NPR describing doing something like that and he said it really helped with the grieving process.

I guess most people are too freaked out about the thought of worms eating their body -- would rather be pickled and put in a concrete lined hole. I read one guy's take on that once: "The earth has sustained me these many years. I owe the earth one body." I want to be eaten by critters after I'm gone. Might find a touch of immortality behind that.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K