My Final Resting Place

The funeral industry is one big rip-off. Humans are just bags of water and meat; the disposal of these bags shouldn't be an entire industry. Ideally, dead bodies should just be composted, or as the Plains Indians did, put up on platforms for the birds to eat.

But the undertakers of the world have us over a barrel. They are negotiating with people who have just suffered a stressful loss, and are likely to spend way too much in the vain attempt to honor the dead, when we should be honoring the living.

I called my mother the other day to get her social security number to make her my life insurance beneficiary. Since I'm unmarried with no kids, and she was 18 when I was born, she may very well outlive me. She then asked me, without sentiment, how I wanted to be disposed of.

Despite my misgivings about the funeral business, I do want to be buried, and not cremated. I want to have a plot of my own (I may go my entire life without owning a place to live only to own a place to be dead). I want a tombstone, of course without religious iconography (no crosses, please). I don't want a public viewing--I think that's barbaric. So therefore no embalming, and they can be put me in the cheapest coffin they have. They can even wrap me in a shroud. I'm going to be worm's meat, after all, why slow down the process?

Las Vegas has a few cemeteries that will do, although it's a shame the one in Tonopah, which is said to be haunted, isn't taking new customers. One of the cemeteries is across the street from the airport, and has planes flying over it all day long. Another one is out by Rancho High School, that would be quieter. Of course, as if the dead have any enjoyment or distress from where they are buried. People buy cemetery plots based on the view! I like cemeteries, and the creepier the better. I want to be in a cemetery where no one would dare come at night (my high school was near a cemetery where the kids hung out and drank at night, and I'm sure a few babies were conceived on top of graves).

A funeral is not necessary at all, really, because none of my family lives near me. To haul everyone here on short notice would be a waste of time and money. I suggest my mom or whomever comes out, puts me in the ground, and then, if they want, schedule a memorial service at a place of their convenience when the weather is nice. I want "Dust in the Wind," by Kansas played, and "Ozymandias," by Percy Shelley, recited. If there's time, play the Fourth Movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the "Ode to Joy," which is my favorite piece of music and one that can not help but lift any spirit.

As for my epitaph, I'd like my name, my dates of birth and death, and the words "Son, Brother, Uncle, Friend" inscribed. Below that, "He was a big tipper."

I'm not sure I'll always be in Las Vegas, so I told my mother she can bury me where I die. Maybe I should pick a place to live with a cool cemetery. Key West has a great one. And of course there's Forest Lawn, but that's probably way too expensive. They have mausoleums where you have to have a key to get in. I wouldn't mind being visited--it's a sweet gesture, but meaningless, really. To commune with a lost love one you don't actually have to go where they're bones are. I'd just like a marker and a body that could be exhumed so there is some evidence I was here.