July 15, 2000

I will tell you the funeral plan story on me and my husband.

My husband has always worked with wood, and he has his name on several woodworker catalog address lists.  In one of the last catalogs that he received, there were plans to build your own or a family member’s casket.  The plans look wonderful; and you can also order all the hardware, patterns for the inside lining, and whatever else that you will need to complete the job.  My husband and I looked and discussed the advantage of building your own caskets.  You could customize size, interior and whatever else you might want to add; plus I know that they would be cheaper.  These things were on the plus side for building your own casket, but one of the biggies on the minus side of that list was where you would store them once you get them finished.  They would take up a big bunch of room. 

After some discussion, we decided that the thing to do was to extend the plan size out wider and longer than the usual casket so that a twin-size mattress would just slip right down into it; and we could put them on biers in our bedroom and sleep in them.  That way, we wouldn’t have to make the beds, just close the lids.  Closing the lids would be another option when either one of us got to snoring too loudly.  Also, we would have them good and broke in; and we would know how it was going to feel to spend the rest of eternity in them. 

I would customize my husband's with a blue satin lining with all the Masonic symbols hand-embroidered in the lid, and I could line mine with whorehouse-red satin and make Teddy Bears to match to go with me. 

When we told the kids about these plans, they both had a jumping-up-and-down fit and said that we were terrible to even be talking and thinking about such things, much less planning for it.  So, after they left, my husband and I decided to make another change to the casket-making plans:  make the casket a little deeper so that he could build a false bottom in it.  They just think that we can’t take it with us!!!