Cemeteries Are Grody

I keep reading all these icky updates.

Facebook, Twitter, the Blogosphere — it seems like everyone, everywhere is talking about how awesome it was to visit graveyards this past weekend. And it’s giving me the heebs. Not because I’m an unpatriotic asshole (although this may or may not be true, depending upon your definitions of “patriotic” and “asshole”).  But because, you know, DEAD PEOPLE, you guys.

DEAD PEOPLE.

I just had to say that again, because, *GRODY*. I do not understand this nation’s fascination with death. Corpses: We like to dress them up, stare at them, carry them, bury them, and visit them in the coming decades. This makes zero sense to me. I have been to a few funerals, and they all strike me as extremely grotesque. And also? Very boring.

Kids at funerals are lucky.

At every funeral I’ve had the “good fortune” to attend, those under the age of, say, twelve, got to bring their electronic gaming systems and sit down in the kitchen near the fridge. And it pisses me off, because I have specifically asked if I could sit down and play a silent round of Candy Crush, and my crowd always glares at me in horror and dismay.

Look, you fuckers.

I’m bored over here, okay? I’m sad the person died, but can we keep in mind that you’re talking about a person {me, FYI; not the skeleton} who carries a book JUST IN CASE there is downtime during which I can’t do anything else… like when I’m in line at the bank or the post office or something. Just standing around, hemming and hawing? That shit drives me nuts. I don’t understand the purpose, and I have difficulty engaging in purpose-less activity. I’m not a goddamn ant just bumbling around a hive. My brain is busy. I have thinks to think and reads to read and games to game. It is HARD WORK being me, you guys.

This, of course, isn’t during the ceremony PROPER.

The actual funeral itself, when all parties are ushered into the main hall, isn’t that bad, because there is a planned activity during which speeches are delivered. I’m talking about the meet-n-greet prior to the bit where we reminisce. The bit where we see relatives we haven’t gossiped about in months because we kind of forgot about them. The time period during which uncomfortable shoes are regretted, awkward hugs are offered, handshakes are exchanged between homophobic males, pictures of the deceased are examined, and stories are repeated and repeated and repeated. It’s always a relief when that weird cousin comes in with her bastard baby, as speculation about the father ensues, and for exactly three seconds we are not dwelling on DEATH.

My extended family points out that headstones are for the living.

Because apparently the living need a specific place to go to remember a person. They need a piece of concrete onto which dates are carved and some platitude is etched. They can’t just conjure up an image of the deceased. They have to take time out of their day and go somewhere specific and “honor” them. They have to do this on their birthday, and on their death-day. And again on Memorial Day, apparently. I’m iffy on this one, because I thought Memorial Day was reserved for military veterans, but I could totally be wrong. And I don’t care enough to *le Googlez* that shit.

All those status updates were about visiting cemeteries.

And that’s just weird to me. Macabre. Unnecessary. Weird. But I seem to stand alone. Everyone just DOES that stuff. Even my hubz said this:

“If I was a better grandson, I guess I’d have visited my grandfather’s grave.”

I asked him all sorts of questions.

• Do you think of your grandfather often, and fondly? YES.
• Do you honor him in your heart? YES.
• Do you need to visit his headstone to recall his best qualities? NO.
• Do you want to plan a visit to the cemetery in the near future? NO.

We didn’t visit dead people on Memorial Day.

And we aren’t sorry for it, either. And we think you guys are odd. But since we’re in the minority on this, we’ll just let you go about your strange games of dressing up the dead. You’re being silly, and you’re taking up too much room with all your cadavers, but whatever. We’ll give you that.

So funerals are boring.

And exhausting, both physically and mentally. Also? Disgusting. I do not want people dressing up my remains and staring down at my dead body. I don’t want anyone lined up around my casket, carrying my 200-pound frame out to a graveyard where, over time, my skeleton will decompose and become food for worms. That seems such a gross and wasteful treatment of our already depleted land. I’m totally for being cremated. Scatter my ashes and shit to the winds, or if you can get them over to Italy, bury them under an olive branch. Toss them into the Mediterranean, or into a fucking pond in the middle of Ohio. Whatever.

I’M DEAD, YOU GUYS. IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER.

If you need something tangible by which to remember me, I obviously wasn’t really worth remembering, now was I? But I’ll humor you: Here’s a picture of me to place on your mantel. When I am dead and gone, you can feel free to visit this image and wonder if I’m looking down on you.

{I’ll tell you now, the answer is NO! I’m too busy reading all the books destroyed over the centuries by dumb-dumbs with fire.}

PS. I totally forgot to even talk about zombies.

OMFG, you guys. Why would you ON PURPOSE go anywhere near a place filled with zombie fodder? Don’t any of you watch movies? Graveyard = NO GO.