Funeral Part I

The start of the new year always makes me reflect on past years, and life's trials and triumphs. The year 2008 provided me with, hands down, two of the most memorable and entertaining events of my life.  Both were funerals. No disrespect to the dead, but these funerals were truly ah-maz-ing experiences.  Not because they were particularly moving spiritually, but because of the entertainment value.


Background:
Everyone knows someone like me. When I get nervous, I laugh (and my armpits tingle). When someone falls, I laugh first, then remember that I'm supposed to ask if they're ok. The worst though, is that I laugh when I'm not supposed to laugh, i.e., Fart in church, and I'm a goner. 

(Remind me to tell you about the time that Bart and I were in the Cayman Islands for our first anniversary. There was an elderly man at the table next to us. He was eating alone. I started crying at dinner, because I concluded--with absolutely no supporting evidence--that it was also his anniversary; however his beloved wife had passed away. Poor man was mourning his dead wife, and here I was practically rubbing it in his face.  Right about that time, he lifted up one leg, and ripped the loudest fog horn of an old man fart that you have ever heard.) 

Ahhhh, a fart.  The joke that never gets old.  And, proof that God has a sense of humor.

As usual, I digress. In 2008, my Mimi passed away.  My Mimi and Papa lived in Paragould, Arkansas.  Never heard of it?  Shocker. 

My family, including my sister and her husband, who have been in Manhattan way too long, set out for Paragould from Shreveport.  Never heard of Shreveport?  Shocker.  We met up with the rest of my dad's family in Paragould, (including those cousins who we are now no longer on speaking terms with), and headed to the funeral home. 

The first hour was immediate family only.  We were all extremely sad and subdued.  My sister and I were both crying.  Dawn couldn't bring herself to approach the open casket, so I went first. 

I leaned over to get a better view of my Mimi, when I noticed something in her casket.  What's that in Mimi's casket...no, not her pillow...is that?...NO!...oh my god, it is!  They are NOT burrying Mimi with a hand held video poker machine.  Oh my God.  They ARE. 

Well, at least she's not Baptist.

Pssst, pssst, Dawn, get over here!  You are not going to believe this...

During the visitation, Bart commented on one of the children's outfits, which was a pair of overalls.  He turned to me and asked, "I wonder what age you are when you get too old to wear overalls to a funeral?".  The answer:  63.  Because that's the age of at least four men in attendance sportin' overalls.  And drinking beer.  In a can.  Although it is hard to tell a person's age in a place like Paragould.  Time has not been good to some of Paragould's people.

In case you were wondering, shorts and T-shirts are also equally acceptable (for all ages), as well as a leather mini-skirt and sunglasses worn indoors and out (that one would be my mom).

Ironically, the point that I lost it--and by lost it, I mean laughed so hard I nearly peed my pants--was not when I discovered the video poker machine in the casket, or when "Elvis Sings the Gospel" began wafting through the boom box speakers (there's nothing like the cassette tape version of the King singing Ave Maria, coming through a ghetto blaster's speakers, while being operated by the preacher).  Nope, that didn't do it; I still had my wits about me at that point.  It was the dove release that broke me...set to Celine Dion's "Fly Away."  Same ghetto blaster.  Same operation.

The site of those doves flying over that Valero station, coupled with Celine belting it out through the boom box, proved too much for me to handle.

That would be the first of two funerals within two months of each other, that I would pretend to cry hysterically to cover up laughing hysterically.

I know what you're thinking.  And, that's not the first time that someone has thought (or wished) that I'm going to hell.  I just hope that you get a good laugh at my funeral when I'm on my way there.