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There Is No "FUN" in Funeral before/after I had high hopes for the funeral. I attended it, vouluntarily, going by proxy for my family. Real WASP-y type stuff. I wanted to get high, and gawk at the archaic religious rites. I wanted to shuffle around and take pictures while they buried their dead. It did not work out like that. I arrived late, after foraging through a freak late winter snowstorm, stopping at the gas station of the shit little town that the funeral was in for directions. I found a sea of dumbfounded faces, starting with the squat trollish trailer trash behind the counter of the gas station. A:"Do you know where the First Presbyterian Church is?" TT:[thinking]"Gosh, no I don't." I thought she was fucking with me. This is a town of five-thousand misbegotten souls-maybe. How you don't know where exactly everything is in such a small burg is reprehensible. A:"So, you don't live here?" TT:[throaty gurgling sounds, indicating, that yes, I live here, I am just a dumbass] So I started to browbeat passers-by for the information. Another woman demurred. What the fuck? Was it the mirrored shades on a snowy day? The black double knit polyester bell-bottoms that I wore so smartly? Nothing comes to mind. Finally, an old man pointed me in the general direction. He could not hear well, shook a whole lot, and didn't really help me much at all. Driving back on one of the town's two main drags, I finally grew frustrated. A:"Fuck it. I'm turning here." I glanced up, and it was a 'No Turn' sign staring at me. Fuck it, I turned anyway. BAM! The church. I parked and hustled inside. An old man greeted me with a program, memorial, and directed me to sit in the very last pew. Fine. This is fine. I am not high, but I am here. As I sauntered into the staid church, I noticed that this particular part of the church is partitioned into a pit of reverence, with the pulpit at the bottom, like stadium seating, abutted against an absolutely titanic pipe organ right behind the aging, yet well uniformed in green and yellow choir. And the choir...was...staring...right...at...me. In a fit of paranoia, as the a few of the mourners turn to stare, I sat in the back, and tried to look non-chalant. I gazed around, and saw the people that are distantly related to me. I knew one person at this fandango. I listened to the eulogy, and it came to mind, that I do not want some cleric who didn't really know me to give my eulogy, when and if such a thing should come to pass. I have heard to many clerical eulogies and they suck. It is painfully obvious that they didn't know the departed, and I feel it makes a mockery of the process. Family or friends should always come forward to make a statement. It is so WASP-y that they let the cleric do it, out of manners, even though the phony fucker just gleaned key points from the family hours before and delivers some of the most souless rememberances I can recall. A man next to me a few feet away in another pew started to drool. His wife, later in the service, would scowl at me for some reason. I listened to the sermon/eulogy and paid attention. I noticed an overall umbrella of spirituality in the theme, until he started to go deep and quote exacting bible terminology, which pretty much killed it for me. I gained an understanding of tending a flock, and how various stages of sprititual growth and existance appear. Some need the severe high and tight indoctrination, some don't need the shelter of pre-programmed beliefs. And I wished there was room in the church for them all. But there is no grace in their dogma for those who question, and I am undoubtedly one of these. The family filed out after the cleric read little cards some of the family had wrote, per his request, about their grandpa, and their fondest memory. Nothing particular stood out, other than repeated references to snuggling in his lap, which I thought was weird. Snuggle in a lap? WTF? Precious Blood Early Learners? WTF? It all sounds to fucking weird for my blood, and I like things on the tawdry side of life, yet not the vaguely incestual. And as they filed out, not one person paid me any attention. Not one iota of recognition for me and my coming by proxy, through a fucking blizzard to shit-heel nowhere to help them mourn, eat food and bury their dead. Nobody asked. Nobody knew. Meaning, I could then likely cruise the funeral circuit, should my morbid ass so choose to do so, and under WASP rules, no one will ask me for credentials of any sort. Somehow, though, I just don't see that one coming together. Fuck 'em. My help is not appreciated here, lots of luck. Bury your dead on your own, fucko. And I left. No one even said "hi" to me. The whole time I was there. Not one person. Presbyterians. Not that I expect any special attention, and am the first to release a family of any social obligation during their time of mourning, but, c'mon, the cleric could have said something, or one of the peripheral people. A wave. A head nod. Something. I walked out into the snow, and there was a girl I had made eye contact with as I walked into the church, and she approached me with a fist full of funeral car flags. g:"Will you be attending the internment?" I looked at the sky, and pondered the complete abscence of recognition that had occurred. A:"Mm....no." And she looked angstful or angry for some reason. g:"Okay. Then you can leave whenever you want. There will be people who want to go and follow in the procession." A:"Thanks. Bye." I thought of trying to flirt, but this just was not the time for me, being recently shunned at a small midwestern burying of the dead regligious rite and ritual. So I got in my car, took off down the road getting high on the last of my weed. The post-funeral "this is shitty" feeling didn't hit me until I reached the village limits. I should never get high hopes. Or rather, maybe I shouldn't get high hopes for entertainment value when I attend a funeral. Or something.
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