Re: The hillarity of beurocracy (even if I can't spell it)

"Well Hung," <royerpfs@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6161d21d-01c0-46af-bda7-b4d336754c01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My sweet mother-in-law had the misfortune of dying at the beginning
of
a long, holiday weekend when official offices close early on Friday
and do not become functional until mid-morning on Tuesday after
everyone has gathered in the coffee bar and recounted their
sunburns,
mosquito bites, hangovers, boating mishaps and cocktales.

Our mother was born into Roman Catholicism, but left the cult as a
young woman and allowed her children to select their own worship
preference. Her sisters and brothers back home remained in Romanism
and have adhered strictly to that ceremonious regimen.

Toward the close of her life she decreed that she wanted to be
cremated and have her ashes spread over a particular area that had
always remained dear to her. But, as every good Catholic knows,
cremation is an abomination--but if you must, at least the ashes
should be buried in one place so that God can find them and
reassemble
them on the Day spoken of in the Bible as "Judgement". When told of
her last wishes, her remaining family back home became apoplectic.

A slight rift has thus developed with some of them insisting that
her
ashes be buried with a small headstone. (Full name, of course, so
that God can find her)

Making it worse is the fact that the lagging beurocracy has
completely
dropped the ball regarding her death certificate, and at this time
no
one knows where the valuable document is. Of course, by law, the
crematory will not procede without it being presented, duly signed
and
notarized.

But we, the survivors know how to handle this. In order to expedite
the process so that we can all get back to work and on with our
lives,
we are going to make a trip downtown to *Ashes R Us* and secretely
buy
an urn full of generic dust so that the family back home can gather
and chant their inane, cultic utterances while one of the sons
buries
the thing in the selected spot.

Then later, when the death certificate is located and the body has
been returned to dust, we can go out--perhaps on her birthday--and
spread her real ashes according to her last wishes.

Further, we'll have to remove the headstone, lest God inadvertently
grab the urn of counterfeit dust in haste and reassemble her into
whatever the dust represented before being atomized. We would not
want our mother being ressurected on Judgment Day as a sturdy oak or
a
bundle of discarded newspapers. Whoop!

But, knowing cults, we will have to make sure that the Ash Police
are
not out snooping around to dash our plans.

Isn't this an interesting message?

--Hung Well.

It has become the tradition in the paternal line of my family to be
cremated and the cremated remains buried in the family plot. Not sure
why, but it takes up a lot less room, and we can still visit what
remains of the departed. It is also convenient if someone dies in the
heart of winter and the ground too frozen to dig a grave. My
grandfather's ashes sat in our shed all through one winter.

Made him easy to visit. Missed him when he was gone.

--
B--

Life's too short not to waste time. (Sal Towse)


.