I finally understand that I will die one day. I denied that this notion for many years. In fact, as a teenager I went to great lengths to defy this idea. I felt certain that some sort of cosmic exception had been made in my case, based on my kindness to animals, warm smile and my position at the universe's center. Sadly, adulthood's creeping physical deterioration has convinced me that I -- like every other doomed life-form on the planet -- have been sliding irrevocably toward my end since the moment I was born. Of course, I prefer the immortality idea, but I have come to terms with my pending demise. Which is not to say that I won't try to duck out the back door when the grim reaper comes a-callin'. I just mean that I accept the fact that he will catch me one day.

So..... If you are still alive when I die, and you have been chosen to handle my "arrangements," these are my wishes:

1. Make absolutely sure I'm dead. (important)

2. Hang me by my feet from a rafter in the garage.

3. Slit my jugular and carotids.

4. Bleed me into that corrugated steel tub I never used for the homemade ice cream I never made.

5. Dice me into bite-size bits.

6. Put the bits into the tub and stir vigorously.

7. Wrap the bits -- which should now have a light coating of my blood -- in freezer paper.

8. Place the "me-packs" in the big freezer in the garage.

If this doesn't get my crummy dogs to eat, nothing will. Yeah, I know it would be illegal, and a waste of my organs, and you probably wouldn't want to do it anyway, but, with the exception of the wasted organs part, this is exactly how I'd like to go -- recycled. Rather than being an increasingly unattractive170-pound albatross around my loved ones' necks, I would be many dinners for my finicky hounds. My remains would be useful little bite-sized memorials, and getting rid of me WOULDN'T COST A CENT!

I don't know when disposing of the dead became such a wasteful, expensive affair, but I do know that tools and weapons have been found in the 60,000-year-old graves of our Neanderthal forebears. As if life weren't tough enough for the little jut-brows, I guess they were expected to keep on working after they died. At least modern man gets to "rest in peace." We may be devoured by insects and bacteria, explode in our "protectively sealed" caskets, or get dug-up to make way for a Wal-Mart while we're resting but, by God, we won't have to work. Sure, burial of the dead used to be as good an idea as any, though it certainly wasn't the only way.

The Parsees of India placed their dead on top of towers where they would quickly be reduced to skeletons by hungry vultures. Australian aborigines, who stuck their dead atop trees, offered them to a wider variety of beasts. Solomon Islanders practiced a particularly efficient technique; they simply put the body out on a reef and let the sharks go mad. (where I got the dog food idea) Today, however, the whole idea of putting dead people in the ground is atavistic, selfish, and just plain goofy. We simply don't have any more room -- anywhere. Burial space is so scarce in London that the Home Office is considering a new "lift and deepen" policy. This space-saving approach would allow remains over 100 years old to be exhumed, placed in smaller coffins, and then re-buried under the original graves which would soon be the "final" resting place for someone new - for a while, at least. In Greece, space is at such a premium, Athenians must rent their burial sites. At the end of the three-year lease, the bones are exhumed and placed in a $35-per-year vault provided by the cemetery. Not surprisingly, many families consider this new twist on "self-storage" to be a bit tacky and they stop paying rent. When "eviction" occurs, local authorities transfer the bones to a government pit.

Things are almost as bad in the U.S. As a solution to the domestic burial-space crunch, cemeteries across the country have begun selling plots in double-tiered "lawn vaults." Top bunk pays more, I suppose. But the Entrepreneurial Spirit Award has got to go to the Woodlawn Cemetery in Compton, California for its bold innovation in space-management. When Woodlawn ran out of room, its owners clandestinely turned single graves into multiple occupancy graves, relocated remains to different graves, and in the case of a few rarely visited burial sites, dug up the bones and threw them and the accompanying headstones in a shed. The California Department of Consumer Affairs shut them down earlier this year.

Then there's the Hollywood Memorial Park debacle. In 1996, the owners of this famous 98-year-old "final resting place of the stars" defaulted on a $2.7 million loan, prompting swift foreclosure by the bank. Eighty thousand decrepit and overgrown graves, crypts and mausoleums, some containing the remains of such luminaries as Douglas Fairbanks, Jayne Mansfield, Rudolph Valentino and Cecil B. DeMille, were seized by a financial institution that couldn¹t care less about "perpetual-care." All they wanted was their money back. The bank put the cemetery on the auction block with a minimum bid of $500,000. That there were no takers was not surprising considering that even though the property was worth at least $3 million, the new owner would have to get written permission from all 80,000 families before building over the graves. In 1997, the bank filed a petition to abandon the site.

The strange, pathetic sagas of the Hollywood and Woodlawn cemeteries illustrate a basic problem with this perpetual-care idea: cemeteries are businesses. They must make money. Once a cemetery is filled and there are no more graves to sell, that's it. If you think for a second that the owners of a non-profit cemetery are going to continue to mow the lawn and polish the marble just because they promised they would, think again. And even if your loved ones don't mind having to use an all-terrain vehicle and a machete to find your gravesite, they probably won't be allowed inside the cemetery anyway because, as in the Woodlawn case, the government will have closed it down. Limited space isn't the only thing interrupting the dead's peaceful slumber. Remember a few years back when heavy rains hit Los Angeles and a couple dozen bodies -- in various stages of decay -- washed out of Verdugo Hills Cemetery into the suburban backyards of nearby residents? That was a hoot. Vandals, grave robbers, earthquakes, business reversals -- Rest in peace, my butt.

Although 21 percent of Americans now choose cremation, the remaining 79 percent are intent upon riding out eternity six feet under or above ground in mausoleums. And this is where waste and avarice conspire in an unholy -- and lucrative -- alliance. Opposition to corporate greed was the common thread running through the recent demonstrations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, and a few months earlier, at the World Trade Organization convention in Seattle. Finally, it appears, people are recognizing that the real enemy is a system that not only pays the average head of a corporation 400 times what that company's lowest paid employee earns, but rapes the ecosystem in the bargain. Compared to the funeral industry, however, the rest of corporate America looks downright altruistic. Large corporations, eager to cash in on the coming baby-boom death-o-rama, began to gobble up mom-and-pop funeral operations about five years ago.

Today, the "Big Three," consisting of the Loewen Group, Service Corp. International (SCI) and Stewart Enterprises, handles one-in-five funerals in the U.S. According to a recent article in U.S. News and World Report, the last five years have seen funeral prices rise three times faster than the cost of living. Caskets are typically marked up four to five times wholesale. Two hours of hearse time costs the funeral home about $25 to provide but it charges the grieving family at least $200. Every service and item provided by the industry -- from grave vaults to thank-you cards -- is marked up from 300 to 800 percent. As ridiculous as those prices are, it is the death pros' marketing tactics that will earn them a special lawn vault in hell. For most people, the death of a family member is about as devastating as life gets. Profound loss, guilt, rage, insecurity and a deep and relentless heartache are part and parcel of the grieving experience. The last thing a surviving family member wants to do is shop around for the best funeral prices in town during this time. This state of mind of the bereaved is characterized as one of the "attractive industry fundamentals" in a report from the Loewen Group to the SEC.

Recently, Florida's WFTV aired the plight of 81-year-old Lindelle Carrier of Lakewood, Florida. A few weeks after the death of her husband, the same salesman who had handled her husband's burial visited Ms. Carrier. It was important, he insisted, that she make arrangements for her own funeral. During a two-month period, the salesman visited her four times. Each time, the salesman would leave Ms. Carrier's mobile home with a more expensive contract tucked under his mercenary little arm. By the end of the fourth visit, Lindelle Carrier had purchased a $132,000 "pre-need" contract, complete with $39,000 casket and a $52,000 private mausoleum. Fortunately, Ms. Carrier's relatives are taking the mortuary -- SCI's Glenn Abbey Memorial Gardens -- to court.

Granted, Ms. Carrier's is an extreme case, but it shows what these guys are capable of. And remember, nobody does guilt like those funeral boys. In recent years, the industry has been pushing a little item known as the "protective seal" casket. The idea here is, for just a few thousand bucks more, the funeral home will protect your loved one from the ravages of insects and decay. (Whatsamatta? Isn't your mom worth it? Do you want her to be eaten by bugs?) What the funeral home neglects to tell the customer is in about four months anaerobic bacteria will have turned mom into so much goo-in-a-dress. Or worse, if the seal isn't strong enough to withstand the pressure of the gasses created by the decay, mom could wind up decorating the entire mausoleum. This happens, folks.

Kick-backs to cooperative members of the clergy, hard-sell boiler room tactics, insanely expensive "pre-need" plans -- these are just a few of the scams dedicated to separating the bereaved from their dollars. Fortunately, consumer organizations across the country have joined forces with honest funeral homes to offer reasonably priced burials and cremations. The largest, Funeral and Memorial Societies of America (FAMSA), contracts with reputable mortuaries on behalf of its half-million members. It also lobbies Washington for much-needed funeral industry reform. The sad truths that George Bush Jr. recently fired the director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission for investigating SCI a little too closely, and that Al Gore's former campaign manager and Democratic big-wig, Tony Coelho, sits on SCI's board of directors, shows what the good guys are up against.

If I can't be dog food, it's definitely going to be a FAMSA cremation for me. Now, I'm not trying to run your death or anything, but remember: If you do choose burial, your family will have to pay big money for it. Most likely, that money will go to some heartless body-mongering corporation. And, face it, instead of spending uninterrupted eternity in some sort of glorious coma, you're probably going to change addresseay big money for it. Most likely, that money will go to some heartless body-mongering corporation. And, face it, instead of spending uninterrupted eternity in some sort of glorious coma, you're probably going to change addresses more than an itinerant field hand -- or, at the very least, spend eternity with a roommate. Yep, I'm going out in a (reasonably priced) blaze of glory. As for you....... well, it's your funeral.

 

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