How To Do Anything Better: Fun With Funerals

If you are reading this, you are going to die. You may die as you hurtle through space strapped to a nuclear missile or you may die from a brain tumor caused by overexposure to Internet blogs. You might expire at relatively youthful age or perhaps you will persist in living until your internal organs succeed in murdering you. However, unless you bathe in the blood of Romanian virgins during every new moon, life will eventually hand you a cease and desist order. You will be deceased and stop existing.

Dying is a drag, but your funeral need not be funereal. Just think – this is the only bad cocktail party that you will never have to attend and it’s being held in honour of your crack-bloated corpse. Feel free to dedicate your virtual death-day party to making everyone as miserable as possible – after all, if you have to die you might as well make everyone else just wish they had cast off their mortal coils. Welcome to your complete guide to having fun with your funeral. Although this text is brief (we don’t want you wasting precious hours of breathing-time learning how to die properly) it is an essential introduction to a better class of funeral or as we like to call it, the Funner-al.

First of all, having a Funner-al doesn’t have to be expensive, although there’s no good reason why it shouldn’t be, you stingy sack of pig feces. However, if you decide to economize so that your ingrate children will have the opportunity to play out their trivial sibling rivalries squabbling over the scraps of your misspent life, there are some key ways to keep your soiree low-budget. For example, old Halloween decorations are a cheap and efficient way to give your Funner-al that extra spooky touch. Remember the automated zombie doll you propped up in the garage to scare kids during Halloween? Consider arranging to have it placed close to your casket, partially obscured by a particularly extravagant bouquet of calla lilies.

If you can’t afford a suckling pig for your funeral feast, old Halloween treats won’t use up your welfare check. In addition to decades-old Rockets and those awesome Popeye candy cigarettes, it’s relatively easy to mix up a killer fruit punch spiked with whiskey and embalming fluid. Add some peeled grape “eyeballs” and plenty of gummy worms to remind people of the various creepy crawlies that will in all probability devour your soulless, rotting heap of flesh. Would you like a funeral cake with tombstone candles on top? Problem solved – a crematorium can double as your very own Easy Bake oven! If you really hate your mourners, also be sure to give them mayo-sodden baloney sandwiches cut into equilateral triangles and a veggie platter with rancid ranch dip containing flecks of something green and possibly bacterial. Bad funeral food is a great cost-effective ‘fuck you’ to the living, many of whom may be homeless and are only attending your funeral for free saltine crackers rather than the sublime pleasure of seeing you dead. Bon appetit, breathers!

Entertainment is another important aspect of the Funner-al experience. Your eulogist, for instance, should be a friend, family member or hated nemesis with a debilitating speech impairment. While Julius Caesar’s funeral oration was delivered by that dullard Mark Anthony, your seven widows will harken to the age-old insights of L-l-l-l-itha Thiverthtein *choking on own spittle* *cough* *cough* *hack* *gasp**biting own tongue* *screaming in unholy torment as she is seized by the Holy Spirit and begins to writhe and yowl in Aramaic*. Extra points will be allotted if you employ a mariachi band or a wedding DJ for musical accompaniment. Extra double-super-plus-good points go to the wedding DJ if he plays the “Chicken Dance,” at a key moment during the grieving process.

Of course, at most funerals, your dead body will be the biggest attraction in the room, the veritable IMAX of the funeral parlor. Most people make the fatal error of allowing a mortician to make them look attractive in their caskets. They get news-anchor hair, pristine make-up application and prosthetic body parts to hide the fact that they have recently been savaged by a bear or bludgeoned with a candlestick in the library, courtesy of that fucking Colonel Mustard. While this route may appeal to natural human vanity, do you really want your mourners to gather around your dead body and murmur things like “It looks as though he’s sleeping. Goodnight, sweet prince,” and “I never noticed before but she bears an uncanny resemblance to Cokie Roberts”? Do you want your friends and family members to believe that at long last they have successfully buried you alive? What you’re really looking for in an open-casket is a high gross-out factor, your mangled body becoming a sort of memento mori and indicating to your loved ones that absolutely no one looks good and shiny after plummeting from the sixteenth storey and getting run over by a municipal sanitation truck. If you’re unfortunate enough to die peacefully in your bed at the age of 106, this may require some dissembling but really, that’s why Heinz invented ketchup.

Finally, every good Funner-al should involve party favours, small tokens of appreciation for the patience, tenacity and physical endurance of your mourners. There are a range of party favour options you can choose and your selection will invariably depend on the tone of your Funner-al and the size of your budget. Cyanide capsules are considerate gifts but if you’re working with financial constraints, nooses will do just as nicely. This is also a good time to return certain items you have borrowed from your mourners – for example, your ex-wife would probably be pleased to regain the steak knife she left planted in your right ventricle.

If you have some embezzled money just lying around, you might consider choosing the Mercedes-Benz of Funner-al party favours – the personalized tombstone. Be sure to inscribe each attendees’ name, an inspirational quote and a rough estimate as to their life expectancy. Making a good death estimate is a delicate art but you can hone your skill with practice. When you’re thinking of a potential mourner decide when ideally you would like them to die. If the person you’re thinking of is nice and friendly with sparkling teeth and a lolling pink tongue, they will probably die before your ideal death time (dogs generally live 12-15 years). Subtract. But say the person in question is bitchy, a genocidal dictator or the owner of money you would like to inherit so that you can fund your Funner-al – this person will probably live forever, like some kind of resentment-sucking vampire. Add 50 years to your ideal death time and then multiply by ten. Chances are high that these are the people who will be doing the Chicken Dance at your Funner-al. Thankfully you won’t have to socialize with any of them!

Now that you know all the essentials of death-day party planning, feel free to expire at any time. You’re certain to have eternal buckets of fun, fun, fun staring out hatefully from the abyss at your Funner-al festivities.