Things that make you chuckle

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A couple of things tickled me this morning. As I was walking to work, I walked by the local funeral home/coffin store. Yes you read that right, coffin store. You see this business is less of a traditional funeral home and more of a place that sells coffins. Anyhow, as I walked by it for probably the 800th time, I noticed that there was a new hand-written sign out front declaring that it now provides 24-hour service.

This of course got me thinking about why one would need 24 hour coffin/burial services. It isn’t like a late night drive-thru run to Burger King or Taco Bell - you don’t just realize that you have a dead person on your hands and that they need to be put in a coffin immediately - be it 1:00pm or 1:00am. Seriously 24-hour coffin sales - who did the market study on this one? Perhaps later today I’ll stop by and inquire how business is going for them.

The second thing that made me chuckle was at the DVD store. As you are probably aware, 100% of the DVDs in country are illegal pirated versions, many quite excellently done I might add. What I found amusing is how advanced this business has become. This DVD store and others like it (as I have now found out) actually have professionally made ¨New Release¨ posters advertising when new ¨pirated¨ DVDs will be coming out - just like the ¨New Release¨ posters you would see in Blockbuster.

Anyhow, the spirit moved me so I decided to comment on my blog. Please let me know if you can explain the 24-hour coffin store.

Peace,
Jeremy

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Comments

[Efrum]

Dem' coffins
Mr. King, I can clearly explain to you why this service is now open for 24 hours. It all started when a transexual named Dobbs Laurie started her/his buisness as a coffinmaker. She/he had the dream that in order to provide the best possible service for her/his customers, it must be available all the time. Her/his first customer past midnight was in fact a mob of gangsters. Their Godfather "Jimmy" had a run in with a nun who was packing, and they needed a coffin pronto to get his body under in order to be like "What Jimmy?" to the popo. She/he took their measurements and custom fabricated a coffin for them from the finest cherry wood that was in stock. Pleased with her/his work, they gave him/ her five grand, even though the work and materials, as well as the time put into it only added up to eight hundered dollars. This story has probably passed to all the funeral homes this side of the Atlantic, so your local coffinmakers probably now provide this service with hopes that they too will get a cool five grand.

[chris]

Have you never seen a western? No matter how big, how scary, how utterly dangerous the street fight is going to be. When all the townsfolk clear out, shutter up the windows, and hit the deck, one brave man stays behind, and goes to work, night or day. The coffin maker. If you find yourself in the street, and you're all alone, hit the deck, for a gun fight is about to go down. I'd check and see if any hardened gang leader is just out of jail, and coming to town on the noon train to get revenge on the local sherriff who locked him up. If gary Cooper happens to be the sherriff, help the brother out, as he always ends up doin it himself.

[Sharon LaBouef]

Coffin Business
Hi Jeremy, Here in Ecuador, there is a law that a person who dies must be buried within 48 hours. That is unless there is special permission given. The special permission would probably only be given if the body is going to be embalmed. Embalming is not the normal custom here and is only done in very special cases when the family members cannot arrive within the allotted time for the "normal" burial. It is the custom here also that there is a continuous vigil all 48 hours before the burial. There are no special "viewing hours". Family members and friends stay with the body of their loved one from the moment of death until the burial. Blessings to you and Sue, Sharon LaBouef

[stacey]

Personally, I like the taco bell/burger king story myself.