I’m reading about the news from Italy, and here’s a dramatic scene for you: a line of army trucks hauling away coffins from Bergamo, where the crematoria are overwhelmed by the number of dead they have to deal with. It’s like a scene out of a disaster movie.
A #Bergamo hanno dovuto chiamare l'esercito per caricare camion e camion di bare da destinare a crematori fuori regione. Prima di lamentarvi della proroga del #lockdown riguardatevi sto video in loop.#coronavirusitalia pic.twitter.com/ofR1raGVTb
— Alessandro Zanoni (@AlexZan87) March 19, 2020
Then the mail was delivered here. Look what I got!
The local funeral home wants me to do some “advance planning”. Sorry, guys, bad timing. My plan right now is to have my corpse thrown into a military truck, driven to some remote spot, and flung into a mass grave and covered over by a bulldozer. Won’t cost me a thing!
“My plan right now…”
I take it the ruby-encrusted sarcophagus and subterranean catacombs under the university got scaled back?
I have a primary and alternative plan for disposal of my remains.
Plan 1 is to be used in a body farm, let science learn something.
Plan 2 is to be interred at the far end of a pathway through a grand poison ivy patch, with the commemorative plaque at the far end. “We hope you’ve enjoyed your stroll through the wzrd’s memorial poison ivy patch and hope that you’ve enjoyed your stay”.
Oooh, I forgot about the catacombs. There’s also my own personal lake in the basement crawlspace. Many inexpensive opportunities here.
Probably should blot out that address from the photo.
Nah, everyone has my address, it seems.
When I go it will be easy. We have 20 acres. My wife’s cousin will rent a backhoe and dig a hole. They can wrap me in a shroud and drop me in the hole and cover the body up. I will be done with the body. Hopefully, they don’t bury me too deep. Give the critters a fighting chance to get to the body.
“I think I’ll go for a walk…”
Already planned and prepaid for after my demise. Cremation followed by my cremains being buried in the same grave as the Redhead’s coffin. Separate vaults though.
When I die, I want my naked, unembalmed corpse leaned against a spammer’s front door.
Then ring the doorbell and run away.
There’s a thing here in hip-wah California to have your body laid out in the woods and let nature take it from there. Might not be good if you die of the plague, though.
Do the starving millions a favor: Remember, Tuesday is Soylent Green day.
Bergamo is in the very north of Italy. Pardon me for tooting my own horn, but that follows what I said yesterday. Most of Italy’s fashion industry and manufacturing is in the north. Many Chinese nationals from Wuhan were working in Tuscany, with direct flights back and forth.
Are you sure about that? Despite chucking literal trillions at big business, I’d be unsurprised if this was one of those occasions where republicans suddenly rediscovered their “small government”-mantra and started sending out bills to surviving relatives.
And remember, everything military costs at least ten-fold what the normal service without the camo paint job would cost…
@13, having spent an entire career in the US military, I can honestly state that the ten-fold figure is nonsense.
Double, a fair number of times, but then one gets an entire pamphlet with specifications for a simple tempered bolt, for something complex, books for each component. That is why there are military specifications, so that the damned thing, made by the lowest bidder, works in any environment.
I also recall the court case for a vendor that slipped Chinese “tempered” bolts that had no temper at all, which would’ve fractured and injured someone badly if installed on any equipment. The vendor responsible got a few years of three hots and a cot in a federal prison for intentionally shipping substandard parts for full price tempered bolts.
Then, we bang the equipment around, abuse it and order a replacement…
I have successfully predicted the GOP response: Send money to businesses, leave the taxpayer shit out of luck, as usual.
14k sick now in the US, unless my approximations are off, we should see 17k within 30 – 36 hours at most. :(
My grandfather’s plan comes to mind. He always said that if you lie around long enough and start stinking, somebody will kick some dirt over you. A true romantic…
I’m going to leave the Fire Service and the Borough Council a thousand pounds each in my will, because I plan to have a Viking funeral in a canoe on the local boating lake. It’ll probably have to be a stealth funeral at night, though, just to make sure the fire has time to take hold before someone spots the flaming arrows and calls the firefighters. Or the cops.
Some people are IMMUNE though:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-51955362/us-students-party-on-spring-break-despite-coronavirus
@12 interesting idea, but I thought Veneto and Lombardy were first hit,hard a bit further north. I’d be looking at all the tourists coming off cruise ships too, The density of people mingling in Venice for example was unbelievable.
@3 I can see that you’re the modest type. Me, I’m thinking bigger, like having my casket slung down a luge track or something. Something that people will remember, anyway. Barring accident, I’ve got a good 15-20 years to figure out something neat.
It is somewhat weird to me that the one physical library book I’m still holding (until the libraries re-open) is Caitlin Doughty’s “Smoke gets in your eyes”, a memoir about working in a crematory. (She has the awesome YouTube channel Ask A Mortician, and is a big promoter of the death positivity movement.)
wzrd1@14: I once had a contract manufacturer try to substitute a Chinese made plastic film for the extremely specific plastic film in a product they were making for my company. “Oh. it’s a like-for-like substitute! You’ll save so much money!”
Oh honey, if that really was a like-for-like then you mother really was a hamster. (It was not the same at all, we proved it, they changed their supplier and we’ve had a nice and productive relationship.)
@ sparks, # 11: “Soylent Green is made of people!” But you probably already knew that. : )
It ain’t up to me really, I told my son that and just don’t spend a lot of money on it, money is for the living but you do what you want it is OK with me
I just do not want to go to his funeral!
uncle frogy
Greatest answer so far to the question “what do you think happens when we die” gave Keanu Reeves asked by Stephen Colbert
“I know the ones who love us will miss us”
the burial and all of that is just something to allow those who suffer because of our death to cope with the loss.
I don’t really care what happens to my body after I die. Bury it, use as organ source, sell to medical university for experiments or students to learn how to do operations. Or sell to some rich fuck to preserve it or to eat it or to fuck it, I don’t care whatever gets you most cash that you can use for my family.
But I expect, that whoever will feel the need cope with my death will prefer to do something more traditional. Don’t really care.
Oh, about coronavirus deaths. In Poland government realised, that if they do not test much and someone older dies after a week of cough, fever and breathing problem, before getting to hospital, there is no point testing the body. Those cases are just written as “natural” and official statistics look great and any model for number of infections is pointless.