I think I might like to be embalmed. Not right this minute, you understand. I'm not ready to give up my body. I am still using it. That's what worries me about organ donation, frankly. They might pop round before you are lifeless. And given the amount of trouble I had with the bailiffs, it is not a risk I am ready to take.Once people have something on an official form,or on "our database" it is the Devil's own job to convince them that it isn't true. I have tried this before. It throws up many interesting philosophical conundrums. Because I am not on Royal Mail's database, I do not exist, and therefore must not have any post. I tried to explain my existence to them yesterday, citing many happy proofs,including Giant Boy. They said No. I pointed out that databases relied upon information put into them by humans,and that most humans were idiots,and that I could prove it. Therefore why rely on a tale told by that idiot, rather than the idiot you currently have speaking to you? I imagine that God has the same problem, certainly if he tries to get his post from Royal Mail, and the Pearly Gates don't have a number on them,or indeed, a Post Code. This all proved a bit much for Customer Services.
So anyway, I was watching a nice man from Torquay being mummified,on the television. Everyone v.excited. The process looked..tricky...and I am not sure that I want my brain and organs served separately. What if someone moves them in the Afterlife? I have enough problems finding my contact lense case. You also have to loll about in a bath for thirty days.Now I have no problem with long baths, and indeed, have been known to retire with a bottle and a book until pink and wrinkly. But this one ends up bright red, because all one's muscles leak haemogoblins,and red isn't my colour. Alan from Torquay looked rather odd, afterwards. Everyone, including his wife, kept going on about how marvellous he looked,if a bit Tandoori. So they wheeled him back to a cold chamber, where they will "keep an eye on him". Hmmm. Apparently he wanted to go in a museum, and to have a mechanical arm fitted so he could wave at people. Alan's wife had clearly been putting up with his sense of humour for a long,long time. A lesson to us all, don't let men involve you in their hobbies. What begins as a mild interest in Egyptology and exhibitionism can ,if encouraged, bloom into a television crew and bespectacled American experts in decomposition taking over the kitchen. I wouldn't mind being stuffed, though. Jeremy Bentham is still looking good. I could be propped up on a barstool in the RBG on slow nights. With a cigarette, please. If you can't smoke when you're dead, when can you? If I get cremated, and I haven't decided.. "Oh, go on, surprise me", I don't want my ashes in a pot.People might add to me, as you can never find an ashtray at funerals and I don't want to put on weight when I'm deceased.
Most people nowadays have never seen a dead body . I have notched up several, what with one thing and another. My Great Aunt Molly had been a Nursing Sister in the First World War . In peacetime, her talents were called upon when neighbours expired, and she would pop round with a little leather bag and do the necessary. We still have the bag. It is rather chic. When my Dad died, I was nominated to be in charge of dealing with the undertaker. I don't know who had chosen him but he was terribly Dickensian. He came round to chat coffins, and I poured him a whisky from my Father's favourite bottle. I think I may have been over-generous, because he became frisky, and inappropriately roguish. He was much smaller than me, so easily quelled, but then he said that my Mother wanted my Dad to be buried with his signet ring and wedding ring on.I said she didn't;because we had talked about it. He insisted. and then, leering ghoulishly at me said "Well,if you want them back, we will have to break your Father's fingers", and mimed this action. I said
" Fine, he's dead, you know". The undertaker made it very clear that he felt my attitude sadly insensitive. We got the rings back. Sorry, Dad, but I know you would have been furious if we had let the pesky varmint get away with it. When I went to see the body, it was just that. I remember so vividly being glad I had gone, despite a little trepidation,because it was so utterly and obviously not him there. I mean it was, we checked, my trust in that undertaker being on the wobbly side, but you know what I mean. So whatever pranks and quirky things people decide to do with their vacant shells. let them get on with it, I say. The spirit has flown. So help yourself to my organs,do. Although I'm not sure they are going to be absolutely mint.Cash Convertors won't have them and I would get shocking feedback off E-Bay.
So anyway, I was watching a nice man from Torquay being mummified,on the television. Everyone v.excited. The process looked..tricky...and I am not sure that I want my brain and organs served separately. What if someone moves them in the Afterlife? I have enough problems finding my contact lense case. You also have to loll about in a bath for thirty days.Now I have no problem with long baths, and indeed, have been known to retire with a bottle and a book until pink and wrinkly. But this one ends up bright red, because all one's muscles leak haemogoblins,and red isn't my colour. Alan from Torquay looked rather odd, afterwards. Everyone, including his wife, kept going on about how marvellous he looked,if a bit Tandoori. So they wheeled him back to a cold chamber, where they will "keep an eye on him". Hmmm. Apparently he wanted to go in a museum, and to have a mechanical arm fitted so he could wave at people. Alan's wife had clearly been putting up with his sense of humour for a long,long time. A lesson to us all, don't let men involve you in their hobbies. What begins as a mild interest in Egyptology and exhibitionism can ,if encouraged, bloom into a television crew and bespectacled American experts in decomposition taking over the kitchen. I wouldn't mind being stuffed, though. Jeremy Bentham is still looking good. I could be propped up on a barstool in the RBG on slow nights. With a cigarette, please. If you can't smoke when you're dead, when can you? If I get cremated, and I haven't decided.. "Oh, go on, surprise me", I don't want my ashes in a pot.People might add to me, as you can never find an ashtray at funerals and I don't want to put on weight when I'm deceased.
Most people nowadays have never seen a dead body . I have notched up several, what with one thing and another. My Great Aunt Molly had been a Nursing Sister in the First World War . In peacetime, her talents were called upon when neighbours expired, and she would pop round with a little leather bag and do the necessary. We still have the bag. It is rather chic. When my Dad died, I was nominated to be in charge of dealing with the undertaker. I don't know who had chosen him but he was terribly Dickensian. He came round to chat coffins, and I poured him a whisky from my Father's favourite bottle. I think I may have been over-generous, because he became frisky, and inappropriately roguish. He was much smaller than me, so easily quelled, but then he said that my Mother wanted my Dad to be buried with his signet ring and wedding ring on.I said she didn't;because we had talked about it. He insisted. and then, leering ghoulishly at me said "Well,if you want them back, we will have to break your Father's fingers", and mimed this action. I said
" Fine, he's dead, you know". The undertaker made it very clear that he felt my attitude sadly insensitive. We got the rings back. Sorry, Dad, but I know you would have been furious if we had let the pesky varmint get away with it. When I went to see the body, it was just that. I remember so vividly being glad I had gone, despite a little trepidation,because it was so utterly and obviously not him there. I mean it was, we checked, my trust in that undertaker being on the wobbly side, but you know what I mean. So whatever pranks and quirky things people decide to do with their vacant shells. let them get on with it, I say. The spirit has flown. So help yourself to my organs,do. Although I'm not sure they are going to be absolutely mint.Cash Convertors won't have them and I would get shocking feedback off E-Bay.
Brillaint. Grinning xx
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