Since I will be boarding a flying death machine tomorrow – sorry, “commercial airliner” – I thought I should have my affairs in order. So, I approached my husband about my last wishes, to make sure we were both on the same page.
He chewed thoughtfully a moment, because he was eating, and then he said, “You wanted me to chuck you in Lake Superior, right?”
No, Joe. No, I do not want you to “chuck” my decomposing body into the greatest of lakes.
Since my husband can clearly not be trusted to remember my final wishes, I share them with you, readers. Please, someone make sure these are all carried out to the very letter:
- In the event that my body is all in one piece upon my death, please, no embalming. Make sure I’m good and freaking dead, of course, but no creepy poking around in my cadaver with sharp, suction tools. If there’s going to be an open casket, let me look grim as all fuck. Don’t even super glue my mouth open, just hold it shut with an old-timey tooth-ache bandage and put fifty cent pieces over my eyes.
- At some point during the visitation, my good friend Cheryl is to lean over my casket and say, “Yup, Jen looks really, really dead.” Since she lives in Hawaii now, you may opt to make this a “destination” funeral and get a really good trip out of it.
- The funeral should be appropriately sad. Hired mourners would be a plus.
- Music selections should include Johnny Cash and the Carter Family performing “Peace In The Valley” and Loretta Lynn’s “Old Rugged Cross.” When my casket is carried from the church or waffle house my funeral is held at, I would like the final hymn to be “Another One Bites The Dust” by Queen. Unless I have completed my lifetime goal of being a contestant on tv’s Jeopardy!, in which case I would like the final hymn to be “Weird” Al Yankovic’s “I Lost on Jeopardy.”
- Since I’m going to be cremated, see if someone can keep my casket. They can’t re-sell them, and it would make a kick-ass Halloween decoration.
- Upon my cremation, I would like most of my remains to be delivered to my grieving husband and children, with a small portion set aside to be eaten, slowly, in front of my friend Keith, who will be forced to watch. He will be reluctant to participate; it must be made clear that this is my absolute last wish and my spirit shall be restless evermore if he does not watch someone eat a little bit of my cremains. He will also straight up vomit, and this is the purpose of my last wish.
- My husband shall bring my ashes to Christmas, Michigan, to a pre-determined location, whereupon he will spill my ass out into the Big Lake and I can become one with the beauty, grandeur, and utter kickassitude of Michigan.
- When my dog dies, probably days after my untimely demise, due to a broken heart, he should also be cremated and thrown into Lake Superior.
- After an appropriate period of mourning, my husband is allowed to “find love” again, but he must make clear to the husband-stealing skank he hooks up with that if I were still around, she’d be out on her ass in two seconds flat and probably missing big handfuls of hair. Also, my kids must not call her “mommy” because she’s probably an evil stepmother just like in Cinderella.
- At no point should the words “Fifty” or “Shades” appear in my obituary, upon pain of haunting. The words “underrated” and “genius” are, however, encouraged.
Now, of course I know I will be fine, and no grave robbing hussy is going to move in on my family before my ashes are cold, but just in case that happens, I am counting on you, dear readers, to see that my last wishes are respected.
PS. Everyone dress like Star Wars characters for my funeral, that would be rad.