June 23, 2023 • 46 mins
In this entry, Grant tries to decompress after a crazy start to the summer but is rudely interupted by Ned and a guy who decided to drive himself into a tree at 120 mph. Grant also recounts a time he was pooped on 3 times by the same lady...What a glorious and dignified profession!
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Thank you for listening!
For Exclusive Premium (commerical free) Episodes of My Funeral Home Stories visit www.MyFuneralHomeStories.com
Follow Grant on IG for updates on future eps and other stuff: www.Instagram.com/pomoandkitsch
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
The following account is real. Nameshave been changed to protect the living and
the innocence. This journal contains languageand content that may not be suitable for
all listeners. Do you know whatit means when someone says you've stepped in
it? In a figurative sense?Of course. I don't think you're an
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idiot who couldn't comprehend literally stepping intosomething. I'm only curious because it's a
phrase I've heard for years but neverreally understood what it meant until I actually
stepped in it myself. If youdon't know, stepping in it refers to
getting yourself into a predicament that isn'teasily resolved. It can mean different things
to different people, as in,wow, I really stepped in it today
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when I criticized my boss at thatmeeting, Or holy shit, I can't
believe I'm made out with the newfuneral director my dad hired. I think
I may have really stepped in it. Yep. I think we all see
where this one is going, butyou're going to have to be patient.
This one is a two parter.There's really no need for a long introduction.
Let's just get right into it.My name is Grant and these are
my funeral home stories. Chapter twenty, Stepping in It, Part one,
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Thursday, June twenty third, three, nineteen am. I should have been
in bed hours ago, but insteadI'm wide awake, laying almost fully reclined
on a chaise lounge in my backyard, staring at the stars while eating my
fourth or fifth Tootsie Pop in aboutan hour. I came out here with
half a bag left, and nowI'm down to two. The one in
my mouth and the one in thebag, both blue. They're my favorite.
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I tend to save those for last. You see, I'm eating a
sucker every time I want a cocktailto try and curb my problematic behavior,
but it's not really working. I'mstill drinking entirely too much, and now
it seems like I always have agoddamn sucker in my mouth, which can't
be doing much for my physique orteeth. I tilt my head back against
the padded headrest and crunched down onthe sucker with my molars and savor the
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blueberry and chocolate flavors mingling my mouth. Thus, synthetic sweetness reminds me of
summertime as a kid, a simplertime a time filled with bike rides and
trampoline playdates with friends, long beforemy days and nights were co opted by
dead bodies, grieving families, andwell ned I wish I could remember a
time when I could only imagine whatit would be like to see someone's head
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blown to pieces by a shotgun blastor smashed all over pavement. But I
can. In fact, I canbarely remember what it was like to stay
home unsupervised watching wrestling tapes in mybasement before my dad put me to work
the summer before seventh grade. It'sa beautiful night, though it was cloudy
and sprinkling earlier in the evening,but it's clear now. Even if it
only lets up for a few minutes, it's a perfect window to enjoy the
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stars and decompress. I am totallyrelaxed and completely uninterested in the rest of
the world in this moment, whichis a welcome change of pace from the
hellish beginning of the summer so far. I'm twenty three and realized still a
week or so ago that this funeralhome gig I started when I was thirteen
isn't just an interesting part time collegejob anymore. No, it's what I
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do now. There's no more classesto take, and there's certainly no escaping
the grind anytime in the foreseeable future. It's clear to me now that I'm
a lifer at my daddy's funeral home, and I'm just like every other son
of a funeral homeowner I know,never quite able to step out of his
father's shadow, each generation worse thanthe previous. I am no longer optimistic
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about the future. I'm just here, on call every other night, every
other weekend, without escape, withoutrespite. I am officially nothing to write
home about. I swallowed the remainderof the gooey chocolate center of the tutsie
pop that's been soaking up saliva inmy mouth and take my cell phone out
of my front left pocket to checkthe time. Three twenty three. Fuck.
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I really should be in bed,but I'm not even remotely tired.
I could blame it on my selfdiagnosed insomnia, but in all likelihood we
just spinning from all the sugar I'djust consumed over the last hour. Regardless,
I'd rather be out here, wideawake, staring at the tapestry of
stars above me, than to belying wide awake in an empty bed in
my empty house, watching the ceilingfan due laughs until my body finally decides
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to shut itself down right before beingstartled awake by one of my alarms.
Speaking of, I flip open myphone and make sure my alarms are set
seven seven O five, seven ten, seven fourteen and seven fifteen. I
know it's excessive, but I'm kindof in my head about waking up and
being punctual after my dad ripped mea new asshole in front of the whole
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staff for being fifteen minutes late onTuesday, and he was well within us
right to do so. I hadno excuse. I wasn't on call and
had actually gone to bed at areasonable hour the night before. I just
kept hitting snooze because my room wasfilled with that chilly summer morning air and
I was just too damn comfortable tobe bothered with getting up and going to
work. Full disclosure, I alsodidn't shave that morning, which I think
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was the real reason for the asschewing for my dad. If he's told
me once, he's told me athousand times, we don't do facial hair
at our phueneral home. And ifI want to look like a fucking hay
seed. I can go work withthe real hayseeds at the double wide funeral
home down the street. I won'tmention them by name here, but that
was a threat. Needless to say, I hastily ran up the stairs and
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shaved my face to avoid any furtherconflict. There's a flashing light in the
sky, miles and miles above methat cuts through the clouds on the edges
of my eyeline. It's most likelya plane, although I can't rule out
a UFO, but given the hourand its path, I'm assuming it's a
passenger jet headed for Chicago or oneof the other bigger cities in proximity to
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our small town. It's strobing winglights are faint but constant, red light,
white light, red light, whitelight. As bad as it sounds,
there's a part of my brain thatimagines how satisfying it would be to
see those small, blank lights transforminto a flash and ball of fire,
followed minutes later by parts of theplane and hundreds of bodies excuse me,
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pieces of bodies landing around me.Catastrophic air disasters have always been a fascination
of mine, and as fucked upas it is to admit it's always been
a dream of mine to see somethinglike that in person. Unfortunately for me,
but fortunately for those on board,the plane passes through my field of
vision without incident. Everything is stillaround me. The animals are sleeping,
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there's no traffic, and weirdly,there's no bugs chirping, just silence.
I'm the only thing awake right now. I am completely alone and considerably content
in that feeling. No one iscalling, there's no bodies to move,
and no one is telling me toshave. Even if it's just for a
few fleeting moments, I can pretendthat I'm the only one left on this
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planet, and imagining a world withoutwork, cell phones, cars, humans
and their drama comforts me. I'dtake a deep breath and close my eyes.
I've been sitting out here a lotlately when I'm finding it hard to
fall asleep. I can't tell youwhy I started or win exactly, but
if I'm feeling overwhelmed or particularly insomniattic, I just walk outside and look at
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the sky. Not sure what thetherapeutic effect is, but it levels me
out, and lately I've needed that. Last week, I went on twelve
calls for the funeral home in crematory. It was a lot, even for
a grizzled, jaded vet like myself. It felt like every time I got
off of work and walked into myhouse, I'd sit down for two minutes
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and then my phone would ring.The worst part about it was the calls
weren't even interesting. I just happenedto be unlucky enough to be on call
for the first scorching out week ofsummer. And if there's one lesson I've
learned over and over the last tensummers, it's that old bodies aren't built
for extreme heat. And last week, when the temperature hit ninety six with
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ninety eight percent humidity, death reinfour. To what I already knew.
It was mostly heart attacks inside andold folks at nursing homes deciding they couldn't
stomach one more nightmarish Midwest summer.And truthfully, I can't say I blame
them. I'm not sure how manymore I'm willing to suffer through either.
It never fails. Once there's amajor temperature shift in either direction, the
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bodies just start rolling in. It'sfunny how even death can be predictable from
time to time, too, bad. There's no way to accurately predict the
weather. Two nights ago, MissusHernandez, a seventy three year old pillar
of our community and distinguished former districtattorney, shit on me three different times.
How's that for distinguished. The firsttime she should attacked me was at
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her home, a beautiful red brickestate on Westlake Drive. Ned and I
were called around midnight after being alertedearlier in the afternoon that her death was
eminent. Eminent almost always means it'sgoing to be late in the evening or
at the most inconvenient time, andit Missus hernande case it was. I
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was in bed watching The Faculty starringJosh Hartnett, the movie about the high
school where the teachers turn into aliensfrom drinking the water or some goofy sci
fi shit. I would love togive you a proper review, but Missus
Hernandez decided to die about halfway through, so I was unable to finish it
before it was due back. Iknow, so in considerate. After arriving
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at Missus Hernandez's sprawling ranch of state, Nan and I greeted and comforted the
family while setting up a time forthem to come in to make in solidify
arrangements for their mother's funeral services.After that, the adult children decided they
wanted to stay in the room towatch us move their mother onto the cod
before wheeling her out of the housefor the last time, which, if
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I'm being honest, is a littleweird for us funeral home folks, But
since we're in the business of helpingfamilies say goodbye to their loved ones,
we will generally bend over backwards atmost any request, including letting them stay
and watch us work. Note familiesgenerally choose to stay in another room while
we make the removal, just incase something unfortunate or embarrassing happens while we
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move the body of their loved one. Plus, I just think most people
don't want to see that an audiencealso puts a lot of pressure on us
to be perfect. I mean,I still get nervous for death calls,
so I don't like the feeling ofbeing watched, more so judged while I'm
doing my job. I personally wouldn'twant to watch my parents get bagged up
when they eventually die, but it'spart of the gig sometimes, so I
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have to live with it. Teachhis own I guess, but seriously,
I put a considerable amount of thoughtinto this, so allow me to talk
it through. Why do some peopleinsist on being in the room. Is
it comforting to see your mother coveredin a sheet and zipped up on a
gurney before we wheel her out inthe caring fashion you've come to expect from
our funeral home over the last onehundred and fifty years. Maybe I mean,
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Ned and I are kind of aShack and Kobe caliber team at this
point, so wanting to sit inthe room and watch work would be understandable.
Maybe the reason for staying in theroom would be to hold us accountable
somehow, to make sure we're notabusing or fondling their loved one while performing
our professional obligation. I mean,I guess there are some real sickos out
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there, but Ned and I aren'tthose type of sickos. Maybe they stay
in to ensure we don't steal anythinglike priceless keepsake or an easily concealable ninety
five pound oxygen tank. Regardless ofthe reasoning, it just leads to undo
awkwardness when something gross or weird happens, like when mom fully unloads her bowels
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in bed when her body is movedin even the gentlest of ways, filling
the room with a smell that shouldn'tbe associated with the memories of your loved
ones last night at home, whichis why we generally go in alone to
help shield people from the disgusting,undignified parts of death. Either way,
the Hernandez kids opted to stay inthe room with us, so Ned and
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I put our heads down and reverentlygot to work. Since the children are
present and this is a solemn andintimate circumstance, we took an old fashioned
approach to the call and decided notto wear gloves. This practice has mostly
fallen out of fashion unless we're makinga removal, where putting on gloves will
dehumanize the body in front of thefamily. There's something about snapping on gloves
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in front of a family that feelscallous and reminds them that their loved one
is no longer the person they knewand our actually hazardous biological waste. Ned
and I didn't discuss the decision togo gloveless. I just took the cue
from him after he flipped open thecot cover and made his way to the
body without reaching for a pair ofgloves. In typical fashion, Ned had
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the head end of the body whileI took the bottom half. When I
slid my left hand under missus Hernandez'sbutton legs, I felt a warm,
slimy sensation cover my palm and tipsof my fingers, which was followed by
a tremendous waft of hot post mortemshit that will undoubtedly fill the room momentarily.
The smell is comparable to regular shit, but far more pungent and putrid
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in nature than a standard living bowelmovement. As we're all trained to do,
I did my best not to WinCEor gag at the smell and disgusting
sensation on my hands, since thefamily was standing near bedside. When Missus
Hernandez's children saw my hand emerge fromunderneath her covered in the warm and surprisingly
green shit, the smell must havesimultaneously hit their nostrils, because two of
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the children quickly left the room.This was either out of pure disgust or
a feeling of embarrassment for their poormother, I bet. When discussing it
later, they told each other theirreason for stepping out was because it was
too painful to watch us move theirmom, but deep down, unspoken to
each other, they all know it'sbecause of the shit. Are you starting
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to see why you wouldn't want towatch us make a removal? Even the
easy calls are gross. Thankfully,the son that decided to stay in the
room went to the adjoining master bathroomwhile we were zipping his mother up and
brought me a large, wet,soapy hand towel to clean off his mother's
mess from my hand, before tellingme I could use the sink to wash
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up. This guy didn't have aproblem with the side or smell of poop,
so it's safe to assume from hisreaction that this wasn't his first time
experiencing his mother's shit, or he'sin a profession where he sees a lot
of it. Either way, kudosto that guy. I still can't stomach
it. While washing up, Irealized that somehow I only managed to get
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a little bit on my suit coatsleeve. Thankfully, my coat was Scotch
guarded at the factory, so thepoop wiped right off. And that's why
I wear that black chap suit oncalls so much. Now it's fucking indestructible.
On the way back to the funeralhome with Missus Hernandez, I realized
I had gotten a small amount ofher ship under my index and middle fingernails.
The sight and realization of what wasstuck under my nail bed gave me
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the willies, I thought to myself, so this is how I get worms,
before raising my fingers to my noseand smelling. The loud, gagging
sound that erupted out of my bodystartled Ned enough that he asked me if
he should pull over. I toldhim not to and everything was fine,
before scolding him in a joking manner, this is why we wear gloves,
Ned. The second and third timeMissus Hernandez pooped on me took place in
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the operating room while we were preparingher body for services. As we were
sliding her body from the cot tothe operating table, the cuff of my
white expressman's dress shirt took unreparable damageand was tossed in the trash moments later.
By the time I noticed the poop, it had already soaked into the
tiny threads and stained the cuff withseveral greenish brown spots that could easily be
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identified even after a good dry cleaning. Thankfully, I left a well worn
on Bruce McGhee T shirt at theoffice for yardwork the week before. Otherwise
I probably would have gone shirtless inorder to help Ned finished the task in
hand in a timely manner. Idon't think Ned would have been too into
that. The arrest of the preparationand embalming of missus Hernandez's body went swimmingly.
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She had great circulation, and thecolor in her face and body was
restored to a state that actually madeher look quite recognizable to the person I
had met in passing several times whileshe was living side note semi unrelated,
I thought Ned was for sure goingto blow up her neck like a balloon
with as much as he was injectingand massaging that area during embalming, but
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he didn't. During the cleanup,after we transferred her body to a dressing
table, I felt my foot slipwhile washing and sanitizing the operating table.
I looked down, and of courseI was standing in missus Hernandez's feces.
One might say I had literally steppedin it. At that point, I
was frustrated, but laughed at theidea that this dead body had it out
for me. I cleaned off thebottom of my dress shoe with a paper
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towel, but some of the poophad gotten into the stick the leather soul,
so while Ned was finishing cleaning upthe prep room, I was standing
outside the garage door in our parkinglot scraping the bottom of my shoe with
an old wire brush I found ina junk drawer. Despite my best efforts,
the poop soaked into the leather andwas smashed pretty good into the stitching.
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I really didn't want to track thisshit into my car and taken home
with me, so I left thecoal hans next to the dumpster, hoping
they would air out, and drovehome barefoot. This wasn't the first time
I had to do this, andI'm sure it won't be the last.
Back in the yard, I havealmost fallen asleep in my lawn chair as
a single rain drop lands on myforehead. I opened my eyes to see
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that clouds have fully covered the skyabove me. A car with loud exhaust
and undoubtedly huge engine accelerates and screamsdown the road, startling me, ruining
my sense of feeling alone and remindingme how much I hate people, and
more importantly, how much I hatethose fucking cars. Nothing screams cool like
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blowing out the ear drums of everyone and a half mile radius. My
level of annoyance instantly spikes, similarto my desire of witnessing a plane crash
at some point in my life.Someday, I hope to hear a loud
crash an explosion down the road whenone of those goofy ass hot rods peels
out in the middle of the night, agitating me and all my neighbors.
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It hasn't happened yet, but somedayit will, and it will be very
satisfying. That is, until Iget called out to scrape the guy's meat
off the inside of his windshield.Another rain drop lands on my arm.
It's cold, but refreshing. I'mactually kind of relieved it started sprinkling,
and that that asshole race past myproperty because now I know I won't accidentally
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sleep in my yard all night again. I say again, because it wouldn't
be the first time it happened.In fact, it wouldn't be the first
time it happened this month. Ireally have to be careful. Two weeks
ago, after a night of toomany cocked. My alarm clock was the
seven am underground sprinkling system turning on. It was quite a shock being blasted
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awake with cold iron filled well waterssoaking my clothes and body from every angle,
not to mention the sobering surprise ofrealizing I had gotten so fucked up
the night before I hadn't made itinside my house ten feet away. It
felt very rock and roll when Itold Net about it several hours later,
while we were parking cars for theAnderson Service. I figured he'd think I
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was cool upon my recounting of theevening's events, but in typical Net fashion,
he was unimpressed and actually made mefeel pretty terrible about myself. With
a left right combo of two expertlyjudgmental questions, He asked, you got
that drunk by yourself, followed bydo you do that a lot? Naturally?
I got defensive and lied and saida girl was over. But I
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could tell that Ned saw through myfib For as simple and boring as Net
as sometimes, he can occasionally bepretty perceptive, even if it's accidental.
Ned's passive judgment bothered me enough thatI thought about it all day and decided
it was time to slow down onmy drinking a bit. Hence all those
suckers I've been stuffing in my facelately. But I mean, now's a
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bad time to slow down on thedrinking because work's really been stressing me out.
Well, not the work itself,more the overwhelming nature of the schedule.
It's grueling. If I've said itbefore, I'll say it till I'm
blew in the face. This everyother night and every other weekend shit is
for the birds. That schedule justisn't conducive for long lasting, healthy adult
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relationships. I'm finding it difficult tohave friends or date anyone when I have
to be attached to the funeral homelike this. No one really understands the
schedule. They say they do,and in the beginning it's kind of quirky
and fun for them to be involvedwith someone in my line of work.
It's exotic and dare I say sexyto be with someone who deals so closely
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with death. But eventually the thingsthey found attractive up the job end up
being the things that annoy them themost. It doesn't feel very sexy or
cool to get stood up because misterJadario decided to mow his lawn in the
hundred degree heat after being sendary forthe last six months, and died while
pole starting as lawnmower. Just toask Annie, we had a date at
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a pizza place so a few weeksback, and that exact scenario left her
sitting alone for an hour before shejust decided to go home. I apologized
profusely via voicemail, but she hasn'treturned any of my calls. I can't
say I blame her either. Whyshould I expect someone I'm just getting to
know to put my work before theirneeds at once. I would cut baton
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run too if part of the dealwas getting blown off and left to wonder
when the hell I'd be walking inthe door every other night and every other
weekend. Mary didn't want this lifestyle, why would any other sane person.
It's safe to say this job isruined dating for me, or maybe it's
just my personality. Regardless, theselittle john's in my yard in the middle
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of the nine help me forget allthat. Today wasn't that bad. The
nine to five went pretty fast,and my nightshift has been a breeze so
far. I got called out alonearound eight thirty to go pick up Missus
Dallahanty at Crestview Nursing Home and washome by nine thirty. Missus Dallahante had
an unremarkable death, which if you'redying, is kind of the way you
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want to go out. It wasa real nothing call, uneventful and predictable
in every way in and out.If you're going to make a solo removal
in the middle of the night,all by yourself, Crestview Assisted Living in
Nursing Home is the place you wantto be. If we're comparing nursing homes
to hotels, this place is toBellaggio and all the other homes in the
area are super eights. They haveevery amenity imaginable at this place. They've
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got tennis courts, a full weightroom, rec center, movie theater,
beauty salon, and not to mention, an incredible cafeteria. I only know
that the cafeteria is excellent because bothof my grandparents on my mother's side died
at Crestview. It might be surprisingto hear, but a good cafeteria can
do wonders for your psyche. Whena loved one is dying at a nursing
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home, you never think of it, but you end up having a lot
of meals and snacks while you're justsitting around and waiting for someone to die.
Noe. The coconut cream pies musthave followed closely by their strawberry rhubarb.
Not saying you should go out ofyour way, but if you're in
the area, pop by, sayhi to an old person and grab a
slice. Aside from the whole grandparentdeath Association thing, Cressfew is kind of
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the ship. If it wasn't afifty five plus community, I'd fill out
an application to live there in aheartbeat. Residential amenities aside. The reason
for gushing about Crestfuw so much isbecause it was designed perfectly for making removals
helpful, staff a designated car part, and they make it a point to
make sure I remain mostly unseen byall the other residents. That's not only
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comforting for them, it makes mefeel a whole lot less awkward while I'm
working. There is nothing in theworld like walking past a nursing home cafeteria
in the middle of their lunchtime rush, pushing one of their dead friends out
of the building and reminding them thatthey too will one day be pushed out
in the same fashion, sooner ratherthan later. People react in two ways
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in that situation. They either pretendnot to notice or they stare. At
this point, I just look straightahead while I'm pushing a loaded cot past
a group of oldies coming down spaghetti. Making eye contact with one of those
folks will ruin your day. Butwhen it does happen, you just have
to nod with one of those It'sa shame we lost irma looks on your
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face while also not totally creeping themout with your next vibe. Cress View
has it figured out and will neverpurposefully subject funeral home employees to that.
With a private entrance and a staffequipped with earpiece walkie talkies, you're in
and out like a ghost, ormore appropriately, the grim Reaper. This
is all just a long way ofsaying, Missus Dallahant, the removal couldn't
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have been any easier, Like Isaid, in and out. To top
it off, she already had prearrangements for direct cremations, so I just
boxed her up and put her ina cooler when I got back. A
majority of the calls we've had sofar this summer have been direct cremations,
which has its pros and cons.Direct cremations are nice because ninety five percent
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of the time there's no embalming involvedafter the removal because there won't be services
or visitation where the body is present. Direct cremation is just a slick way
of saying fastest possible body disposal.No bells, no whistles. We pick
up the deceased, place them ina cardboard box, get the death certificate
signed, and within two days you'vegot mom back home in an eight by
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six black plastic box or something moreornate. But you better believe something more
ornate isn't included with the price ofa direct cremation. You know us funeral
folks love our up sales. Directcremations are also considerably easier on the staff.
There's just not as much work involvedin a lot less room for fuck
ups. There are so many thingsyou can screw up in a traditional service,
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the makeup, the hair, theembalming, the flowers. The list
could go on, but with adirect cremation call, it's simple and transactional.
You pay us, we take careof your hazardous human waste. Over
the last several years, direct cremationshave been on the rise, partially out
of ease and convenience, but mostlyout of cost. Currently, our price
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for direct cremation out the door isright around eight hundred dollars, a price
it's hard to beat, which iswhy we've seen such an influx and that
type of service lately. People justaren't spending the money they used to on
traditional funeral services. The clouds havealmost fully covered the sky above me now,
and I feel a yawn start tocreep over my body, telling me
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it's time to go inside and goto bed. When my phone rings,
the caller ID says Ned. Ofcourse, the moment I decide to call
it a night, Ned decides toblow up my spot. Maybe he's just
calling to say hi, or tellme he's thinking about me. Doubtful.
I flipped my phone open and sayhello, Grant, it's Ned. We
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got a police call. Fuck,it's three thirty five. Now I'm on
my way. It's raining, nothingspectacular, just a light dusting enough to
make the roads wet and reflective.There's virtually no one on the road this
time of night, so I wasable to set my cruise control down Johnson
at forty seven miles per hour andhit every green light. While totally spacing
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out, I popped in my lastblue Tootsie Pop and listened to a nineties
playlist I had burned onto a CDlast week, It's kind of a Slammer.
While I was driving in I heardGood by Better than Ezra, Molly
Ringwald by Sponge and Possum Kingdom bythe Toady's. I ejected the CD and
placed it in my front left jacketpocket so I wouldn't be bored to death
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listening to shitty East Coast talk radiofor the next hour. Note I just
added to where the indestructible chap suitmentioned earlier when Ned told me it was
a police call. I thoroughly washedthe sleeve after the Hernandez incident the other
night, so there is no visibleor smellable evidence of the unfortunate mess.
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By the time I pull up tothe funeral home, Ned already has the
van loaded and pulled out into theparking lot. Even though the rain is
light and the van is parked,Ned still has the windshield wipers needlessly cranked
to full blast. I pull intothe spot next to the van tooed my
horn quickly to get Ned's attention.And wave like Forrest Gump at him,
my sucker stick protruding out of mygrinning mouth. He looked confused when he
(28:40):
saw me, as he does mostevery time he sees me, and holds
up his left wrist tapping an imaginarywatch. WHOA no way back? Ned
must be in a hurry tonight.I locked my car and walk over to
the passenger side of the van.The sound of the windshield wipers scraping with
every quick pass is grating and almostlouder than the sound the running engine.
I grabbed the door handle and pullonly to realize it's still locked. Annoyed,
(29:04):
I knock loudly on the window asNed smiles while reaching down to unlock
the door, knowing full well howmuch this bothers me. The dome light
turns on as I opened the doorand see a tin of skull wintergreen long
cut chewing tobacco next to a fullsized piece of notebook paper with two words
written on it, Hillsdale Church.Ned quickly grabs the tin and the paper,
(29:26):
clearing my seat. As I saywe got called out to a church
on a police call? Ned says, no, there's an accident right in
front of it. I didn't haveto write the address because the Sheriff's department
told the answering service it would behard to mess. Intrigued, I fastened
my seat belt and pull out theCD from my front jacket pocket without asking.
I stick it in the CD sloton the dash while playfully staring in
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Ned, knowing how much this annoyshim. Ned hates it when I bring
music for the ride because it's usuallysomething he would categorize less as music and
more as noise. He told melast week that my favorite band, Humphries
McGee, sounds like six people allplaying different songs at once. This annoyed
me because it's mostly untrue. Thelow rumbling of the AM radio goes silent
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for a moment before the opening drumfill of Harvey Danger's flag pole set us
sounds throughout the van. Ned,in typical old man fashion, immediately reaches
for the volume knob, turning itdown to a barely audible level. I
bite down on my Tootsie pop,breaking the shell, and throw the stick
out the window. Ned pulls away. Ten minutes later, Ned and I
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turn onto County Road seven and immediatelyare greeted by no less than five cop
cars and two fire trucks, allwith their lights on. We pull up
to the makeshift blockade of police carsblanketing both lanes of traffic. An officer
gets out of his car and walkstoward the van. Ned rolls down his
window and greets him with a Howdyofficer. Howdy, I think to myself,
(30:59):
Ned's a dork. The officer nodsat Ned and acknowledges me. I
pantomime tipping an imaginary cowboy hat onmy head and say howdy officer in a
pseudo Southern accent. Ned shoots mea look of annoyance that I'm very familiar
with after being on call with himfor the last several years. The tension
between us is mostly of the ballbusting sword, but occasionally our odd couple
(31:22):
pairing wears us boat down. Theofficer interrupts our tense moment and starts to
fill us in. Just off theroad up here, we've got a vehicle
that collided with a tree at anextremely high rate of speed before catching fire
and burning the body inside to anunrecognizable lump of flesh and bone in the
driver's seat. The car is registeredtoo and Allen slay Ball, but there
(31:45):
was no wallet or id inside,or if there was, it was burnt
to a crisp. So currently we'redealing with a John Doe until we verify
an identity from the family. Theofficer continues by stating, we've got quite
a mess, and if we haveshoe coverings or coveralls, we should put
those on, otherwise we're probably goingto ruin the clothes we came in.
(32:06):
The officer tells Ned and I,I'll move his car and let us through
to get closer to the accident scene, before walking back to his vehicle and
reversing five or six feet waving usthrough. Ned inches past the makeshift blockade
and pulls around the first fire truckparked in the right lane, revealing our
accident scene, illuminated by several largehalogen worklights set up on the gravel shoulder
(32:29):
of the road. It's a doozyabout ten feet off the road. There's
two identical trees separated by as sixor seven foot gap, and sitting in
that gap a car that's so badlyburned and mangled its make and model is
unrecognizable at first glance. All thewindows appear to be blown out, and
the back axle is perpendicular to thefront. I think back to about forty
(32:52):
minutes ago when that loud ass carblew past my house, and for a
split irrational second, I think mywish may have come Maybe this is the
same guy. Did I manifest this? Do I have superpowers? The rational
part of my brain flipped on andassured me that the call came in too
quick after I heard the car zoompassed. Logistically speaking, it would have
(33:14):
been impossible for that person to makeit to this side of town, crash,
die and burn up. The accidentscene of this John Doe we're on
now must have happened well over anhour ago, maybe two, and the
police generally don't invite us out tocrime scenes until the investigation is over,
so it couldn't be the same guy. At this point, the rain is
(33:35):
let up, so thankfully it doesn'tseem like we'll be getting soaked on this
removal. Ned parks the van andwe get out, removing the cot and
putting on our gloves and coveralls.I pull a disaster pouch out of the
back of the van and unfurl it, knowing it will be much easier to
bag this body near the car thanit will be to drag the cot through
the grass and mud, given theprecariousness of this car's final destination. As
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we approach, the wind changes directions, and I'm a little disappointed at the
lack of burnt smell. Don't getme wrong, it definitely smelled like there
was a fire, but it didn'thave the hallmarks I was expecting in a
burnt dead body call. I'm mostlymissing the burnt hot dog smell I've grown
so accustomed to on these type ofcalls. I suppose it's still there,
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but the smell of burnt plastic,metal and rubber are masking it. We
park the cod on the shoulder nearan officer who's standing next to the car,
examining the scene with a high poweredled flashlight. The gravel shoulder is
muddy from all the runoff water thefirefighters used to extinguish the blaze. Our
white cover all footies are all butcovered in mud, and we haven't even
(34:43):
stepped off the road yet. Theofficer shines a flashlight at us and says,
over here, guys. Ned andI approach, our feet sicking into
the saturated muddy grass. As weget closer to the car, Ned blurts
out of nowhere wall, pointing,look, Grant, there aren't any skid
marks. This guy had no ideahe was done for, which I imagine
if you're going to get in acar accident that kills you, it would
(35:06):
probably be better to have no ideait's coming. Those last few seconds of
realizing you're about to die in arelatively empty area in a single vehicle accident
would be agonizing but also potentially embarrassingif your brain could process the information quick
enough. We stop when we getto the officers standing two or three feet
(35:29):
from the driver's side and he says, there is shining his light on the
driver's side door. Excuse me?What was left of the driver's side door.
It's semi accordioned and barely hanging ontoits hinges. Slashing closer, I
start to see things in the driver'sseat that vaguely resemble a body. I
say vaguely because the catastrophic nature ofthe accident and subsequent fire have made this
(35:53):
human considerably unrecognizable. But to behonest, I'm not that impressed or grossed
out with what I see because it'sall the same color black or shades of
black. This fire must have beenintense, but it makes sense given the
condition of the frame of the car. One of the front wheels is broken
(36:14):
off its axle, and the entirefront end of the vehicle has been compacted
into a V shape and almost mergedwith the tree where the primary impact happened.
The car must have been gray orsome shade of light blue before the
fire, judging by the small spotsof paint that were somehow unharmed in the
blaze. I see a shiny emblemof the car's make that must have fallen
(36:37):
to the ground un impact, andpointed out to Ned it's our axe.
I literally almost bought one of thesea few years ago, but settled for
something a little less flashy and honestly, after seeing its performance and this real
world crash test, I'm glad Iopted out. The officer shines his light
on us, temporarily blinding me,and says, you guys need anything then?
(37:00):
And I both reply with a pleasantno, thank you, but I
pipe up and ask how fast doyou think this guy was going? The
officer looks at the car and looksback at me before saying, I don't
know. Buck fifteen, buck twentyfive? Holy shit? He was flying.
I respond. The officer shines hisflashlight in my face and ask,
what's going on with you? Didyou suck off a smurf? Confused,
(37:22):
I say, laughing what. Theofficer replies, your mouth and lips are
blue. Puzzled for a moment,I shake my head, trying to decode
what he's saying. When I rememberthe suckers, I respond, Oh,
yeah, I ate a bunch oftutsie pops before I got called out,
giggling at my lack of awareness forwhat the dark blue suckers due to a
mouth after long exposure. The officerlooks me up and down before responding,
(37:45):
what are you in third grade?I giggle and say no, I'm an
alcoholic. Well aware that my responsewas no doubt confusing to the officer,
I start to unzip our disaster pouchand place it on the ground near the
driver's Doorfer holds his light over ourheads to help better illuminate the body inside
the car. Shit. This guyisn't just burnt to a crisp. His
(38:07):
whole head and upper body are blownwide open, most likely from the impact
on the steering wheel. This guydidn't have a seatbelt on which killed him
instantly and presumably saved him from thesuffering of being burned alive. I couldn't
imagine the blood curdling screams that wouldhave projected out of his car into the
open field while his skin bubbled andsplit off his body. I mean good
(38:30):
on him for not living through theimpact. Ned and I waste little time
getting to work. We both squeezeour bodies in front of the driver's door,
each grabbing a part of his burntbody. Ned grabs the legs as
time. I grabbed the meteor partof his arm and pull the top layer
of this John Doe's flesh, whichhad been fused with whatever clothing he had
(38:51):
been wearing, slips and pulls offhis arm, revealing a fresher, less
burnt layer of muscular tissue, atissue standing out, red, head and
vibrant amongst all the other black aroundit. I tighten and firm up my
grip, pulling harder, now ignoringthe skin slippage. He doesn't move.
He's stuck. Ned had no issuegetting his legs out of the car and
(39:12):
looks at me, confused when hesees that half the man's body is still
in the vehicle. Use your muscles, the officer says, snickering to himself.
I pull again, this time harder, with very little movement. As
a result, the man's burnt andbroken head and upper body start to slump
out of the car to reveal what'sleft of his skull and face. His
(39:32):
scalp and hair, or what's leftof his hair, is singed and matted
around his skull cap. Some boneand broken teeth are visible where his face
is split wide open. Yuck.I don't know where this guy's nose and
eyes are. I guess they couldbe burnt up, or they could be
embedded in his dashboard. His chestis completely caved in towards the center,
(39:54):
compressing his lungs and heart, which, if they're visible through the hole,
are hard to make out. Consideringthe severity of the fire, this must
have been a huge blaze. There'sno blood or visible red inside the body.
Everything's a soot written, black,wet mess. I look at my
gloves before readjusting my grip. They'rewet and covered in charred human mush.
(40:19):
It almost looks like I was pullingapart a brisket or a piece of meat
that had been smoking for days.I wipe my hands on my coveralls,
hoping it will secure a better gripon his body. For my next attempt,
I firmly placed both hands under hisarmpit and pull with no resolve.
Thinking quickly, not wanting to beembarrassed by my weakness, I place my
(40:39):
right foot on the car's frame andpush. While pulling the man's armpit,
he gives way. The body fallsto the ground, perfectly into the disaster
pouch. I moved my foot tostep down and hear the shoe covering of
my coveralls rip before placing my footdown with a splash. Shit, I
say out loud under my breath.I just stepped in an indented part of
(41:00):
the grass that allowed a substantial amountof water to puddle, soaking my shoe
and sock completely. I don't wantto think about what's in this water,
ned and I zip up and placethe disaster pouch onto the cot, loaded
into the van, and proceed totake the body to the hospital for an
autopsy. Uncomfortable, I wiggled mywet toes inside my shoe all the way
(41:22):
to the hospital and all the wayback to the funeral home. Friday morning,
seven forty six am, yawning uncontrollablyafter my marathon of a night,
I pull into the parking lot ofa Walgreen drug store on the corner of
Maine and Jackson to replenish my suckersupply. Along with being exceptionally tired this
(41:44):
morning, I'm also moderately irritated afterI realized I was going to have to
wear the shoes from the wet messof a death call last night to work
this morning instead of my usual dailydrivers my coal hans, you know,
the shoes that are still sitting bythe dumps lightly caked with missus Hernandez's shit.
Since I got home around four thirty, there really wasn't enough time to
(42:06):
air out the shoes and let themdry completely, so I'm currently wearing a
damp sock inside a drying shoe,which bothers me. I'm sure my irritation
will subside the dryer my foot feels, but right now I just feel gross.
I need a sucker. I openedmy car door and place my foot
on the ground, and I'm greetedby a familiar cold, wet feeling and
(42:28):
a splash. My shoe, footand sock are completely soaked again. I
stepped in another puddle. Damn it. Twelve thirty five pm. I'm sitting
at the large roll top desk inthe lobby of the funeral home on guard
duty while Ned and the other guysare at lunch. I have my shoes
and socks off, sitting under asmall fan in the other room, hoping
(42:50):
they will miraculously finish air drying inthe next fifteen minutes or so before my
dad's one o'clock appointment is here Athree piece black suit and bare feet is
an interesting look. I feel likePaul McCartney. My dad would kill me
if he saw me sitting in thelobby like this, but he's upstairs doing
paperwork, so he'll never know.The doorbell rings. Shit, it's the
(43:10):
back door, which is about twentyor so feet away. I don't have
time to put on my shoes,so I just stand behind the desk.
I hear footsteps approaching, sounds likeheels. A woman with dark hair and
a petite, athletic frame in hermid twenties wearing a slim cut gray pantsuit
walks into my field of vision.I greet her with a smile from behind
(43:30):
the desk, concealing my bare feet. She's cute. I think to myself,
Hi there, how can I helpyou? She replies, I'm here
for a job interview with Bill jobinterview. I didn't know we were hiring.
She doesn't really strike me as thefuneral home type. She's too pretty
and well groomed to be a funeraldirector. Well that's compared to the female
funeral directors I know. Smiling ather, I say, hold on,
(43:53):
let me intercom them. I callmy dad's office phone directly and tell him
his interview is here. Great,she's I like that. Do me a
favorite, Grant. I'm on acall right now. Why don't you show
her around the office. I'll beready for her and ten. I say
to my dad, copy that andhang up the phone. I stepped from
behind the desk and say, he'son a call right now. I'm actually
(44:13):
his son, Grant. He askedme if i'd show you around. She
shakes my hand and starts laughing.Hi, I'm Jennifer. You guys are
pretty casual around here, aren't youwhat I say, confused before looking down
at my bare feet. Oh mygod, that's a long story, but
yeah, we like to party here. Give me a second. I run
into the other room and put onmy shoes, still damp, leaving my
(44:34):
socks to dry where I left themfor the next fifteen minutes. I gave
Jennifer the nickel tour of our funeralhome before walking her up to my dad's
office. Right before I walk herin, I asked her not to mention
the barefoot greeting to my father.She giggles and says, don't worry,
grant your secrets safe with me anyway. I like to party two. She
says this to me as she winks. Oh my god, is she flirting
(44:57):
with me? I think she's flirtingwith me. Semi lustered, I walk
her into my dad's office and say, Bill, this is Jennifer. Jennifer,
this is Bill. I lead theroom and head back down to the
lobby, feeling the soggy remnants ofthe poddle inside my shoes squishing up through
my insul. I can't believe Istepped in two puddles in less than twelve
hours. I'm a mess, butam unbothered in this moment because all I
(45:21):
can think about is Jennifer's wink.She was flirting with me, right.
I hope my dad hires her inthis moment. I had no idea that
in a matter of weeks I wouldtruly learn what the phrase stepping in it
means after a long night of drinkingwith our newest employee, Jennifer. But
that's a story for another day.My name is Grant and these are my
(45:43):
Funeral Home Stories. Hopefully you enjoyedthis episode and are intrigued enough to listen
apart two of this story, whichwill be available a little further down the
road. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review it wherever you
listen to podcasts. It really helpsmore than you know. Also, please
tell a friend, co worker,podcaster, blogger, whoever about my Funeral
(46:04):
Home Stories. Word of mouth hasbeen how this podcast has been able to
grow so much over the last severalyears. And I can't tell you how
much it means to me that youshare this podcast with your friends. I
have every intention of finishing season fourin the next several months, so please
follow me on Instagram for updates anda bunch of other random shit at Pomo
and kitch, or just look upGrant Inman. Also check out my other
(46:28):
podcast, How to Become a TerriblePerson, which is the podcast I do
with my fiance and the Ai authora podcast where I let Ai write short
stories that I just get to read. Both of those podcasts are wildly different
than this one, but they're apretty good time. As always, thank
you for your patience and thank youso much for listening. See you soon.
The following account is real. Nameshave been changed to protect the living and
the innocence. This journal contains languageand content that may not be suitable for
all listeners. Do you know whatit means when someone says you've stepped in
it? In a figurative sense?Of course. I don't think you're an
(00:23):
idiot who couldn't comprehend literally stepping intosomething. I'm only curious because it's a
phrase I've heard for years but neverreally understood what it meant until I actually
stepped in it myself. If youdon't know, stepping in it refers to
getting yourself into a predicament that isn'teasily resolved. It can mean different things
to different people, as in,wow, I really stepped in it today
(00:45):
when I criticized my boss at thatmeeting, Or holy shit, I can't
believe I'm made out with the newfuneral director my dad hired. I think
I may have really stepped in it. Yep. I think we all see
where this one is going, butyou're going to have to be patient.
This one is a two parter.There's really no need for a long introduction.
Let's just get right into it.My name is Grant and these are
my funeral home stories. Chapter twenty, Stepping in It, Part one,
(01:11):
Thursday, June twenty third, three, nineteen am. I should have been
in bed hours ago, but insteadI'm wide awake, laying almost fully reclined
on a chaise lounge in my backyard, staring at the stars while eating my
fourth or fifth Tootsie Pop in aboutan hour. I came out here with
half a bag left, and nowI'm down to two. The one in
my mouth and the one in thebag, both blue. They're my favorite.
(01:34):
I tend to save those for last. You see, I'm eating a
sucker every time I want a cocktailto try and curb my problematic behavior,
but it's not really working. I'mstill drinking entirely too much, and now
it seems like I always have agoddamn sucker in my mouth, which can't
be doing much for my physique orteeth. I tilt my head back against
the padded headrest and crunched down onthe sucker with my molars and savor the
(01:57):
blueberry and chocolate flavors mingling my mouth. Thus, synthetic sweetness reminds me of
summertime as a kid, a simplertime a time filled with bike rides and
trampoline playdates with friends, long beforemy days and nights were co opted by
dead bodies, grieving families, andwell ned I wish I could remember a
time when I could only imagine whatit would be like to see someone's head
(02:20):
blown to pieces by a shotgun blastor smashed all over pavement. But I
can. In fact, I canbarely remember what it was like to stay
home unsupervised watching wrestling tapes in mybasement before my dad put me to work
the summer before seventh grade. It'sa beautiful night, though it was cloudy
and sprinkling earlier in the evening,but it's clear now. Even if it
only lets up for a few minutes, it's a perfect window to enjoy the
(02:45):
stars and decompress. I am totallyrelaxed and completely uninterested in the rest of
the world in this moment, whichis a welcome change of pace from the
hellish beginning of the summer so far. I'm twenty three and realized still a
week or so ago that this funeralhome gig I started when I was thirteen
isn't just an interesting part time collegejob anymore. No, it's what I
(03:07):
do now. There's no more classesto take, and there's certainly no escaping
the grind anytime in the foreseeable future. It's clear to me now that I'm
a lifer at my daddy's funeral home, and I'm just like every other son
of a funeral homeowner I know,never quite able to step out of his
father's shadow, each generation worse thanthe previous. I am no longer optimistic
(03:28):
about the future. I'm just here, on call every other night, every
other weekend, without escape, withoutrespite. I am officially nothing to write
home about. I swallowed the remainderof the gooey chocolate center of the tutsie
pop that's been soaking up saliva inmy mouth and take my cell phone out
of my front left pocket to checkthe time. Three twenty three. Fuck.
(03:51):
I really should be in bed,but I'm not even remotely tired.
I could blame it on my selfdiagnosed insomnia, but in all likelihood we
just spinning from all the sugar I'djust consumed over the last hour. Regardless,
I'd rather be out here, wideawake, staring at the tapestry of
stars above me, than to belying wide awake in an empty bed in
my empty house, watching the ceilingfan due laughs until my body finally decides
(04:15):
to shut itself down right before beingstartled awake by one of my alarms.
Speaking of, I flip open myphone and make sure my alarms are set
seven seven O five, seven ten, seven fourteen and seven fifteen. I
know it's excessive, but I'm kindof in my head about waking up and
being punctual after my dad ripped mea new asshole in front of the whole
(04:38):
staff for being fifteen minutes late onTuesday, and he was well within us
right to do so. I hadno excuse. I wasn't on call and
had actually gone to bed at areasonable hour the night before. I just
kept hitting snooze because my room wasfilled with that chilly summer morning air and
I was just too damn comfortable tobe bothered with getting up and going to
work. Full disclosure, I alsodidn't shave that morning, which I think
(05:00):
was the real reason for the asschewing for my dad. If he's told
me once, he's told me athousand times, we don't do facial hair
at our phueneral home. And ifI want to look like a fucking hay
seed. I can go work withthe real hayseeds at the double wide funeral
home down the street. I won'tmention them by name here, but that
was a threat. Needless to say, I hastily ran up the stairs and
(05:23):
shaved my face to avoid any furtherconflict. There's a flashing light in the
sky, miles and miles above methat cuts through the clouds on the edges
of my eyeline. It's most likelya plane, although I can't rule out
a UFO, but given the hourand its path, I'm assuming it's a
passenger jet headed for Chicago or oneof the other bigger cities in proximity to
(05:46):
our small town. It's strobing winglights are faint but constant, red light,
white light, red light, whitelight. As bad as it sounds,
there's a part of my brain thatimagines how satisfying it would be to
see those small, blank lights transforminto a flash and ball of fire,
followed minutes later by parts of theplane and hundreds of bodies excuse me,
(06:08):
pieces of bodies landing around me.Catastrophic air disasters have always been a fascination
of mine, and as fucked upas it is to admit it's always been
a dream of mine to see somethinglike that in person. Unfortunately for me,
but fortunately for those on board,the plane passes through my field of
vision without incident. Everything is stillaround me. The animals are sleeping,
(06:30):
there's no traffic, and weirdly,there's no bugs chirping, just silence.
I'm the only thing awake right now. I am completely alone and considerably content
in that feeling. No one iscalling, there's no bodies to move,
and no one is telling me toshave. Even if it's just for a
few fleeting moments, I can pretendthat I'm the only one left on this
(06:51):
planet, and imagining a world withoutwork, cell phones, cars, humans
and their drama comforts me. I'dtake a deep breath and close my eyes.
I've been sitting out here a lotlately when I'm finding it hard to
fall asleep. I can't tell youwhy I started or win exactly, but
if I'm feeling overwhelmed or particularly insomniattic, I just walk outside and look at
(07:15):
the sky. Not sure what thetherapeutic effect is, but it levels me
out, and lately I've needed that. Last week, I went on twelve
calls for the funeral home in crematory. It was a lot, even for
a grizzled, jaded vet like myself. It felt like every time I got
off of work and walked into myhouse, I'd sit down for two minutes
(07:35):
and then my phone would ring.The worst part about it was the calls
weren't even interesting. I just happenedto be unlucky enough to be on call
for the first scorching out week ofsummer. And if there's one lesson I've
learned over and over the last tensummers, it's that old bodies aren't built
for extreme heat. And last week, when the temperature hit ninety six with
(07:57):
ninety eight percent humidity, death reinfour. To what I already knew.
It was mostly heart attacks inside andold folks at nursing homes deciding they couldn't
stomach one more nightmarish Midwest summer.And truthfully, I can't say I blame
them. I'm not sure how manymore I'm willing to suffer through either.
It never fails. Once there's amajor temperature shift in either direction, the
(08:18):
bodies just start rolling in. It'sfunny how even death can be predictable from
time to time, too, bad. There's no way to accurately predict the
weather. Two nights ago, MissusHernandez, a seventy three year old pillar
of our community and distinguished former districtattorney, shit on me three different times.
How's that for distinguished. The firsttime she should attacked me was at
(08:41):
her home, a beautiful red brickestate on Westlake Drive. Ned and I
were called around midnight after being alertedearlier in the afternoon that her death was
eminent. Eminent almost always means it'sgoing to be late in the evening or
at the most inconvenient time, andit Missus hernande case it was. I
(09:01):
was in bed watching The Faculty starringJosh Hartnett, the movie about the high
school where the teachers turn into aliensfrom drinking the water or some goofy sci
fi shit. I would love togive you a proper review, but Missus
Hernandez decided to die about halfway through, so I was unable to finish it
before it was due back. Iknow, so in considerate. After arriving
(09:22):
at Missus Hernandez's sprawling ranch of state, Nan and I greeted and comforted the
family while setting up a time forthem to come in to make in solidify
arrangements for their mother's funeral services.After that, the adult children decided they
wanted to stay in the room towatch us move their mother onto the cod
before wheeling her out of the housefor the last time, which, if
(09:43):
I'm being honest, is a littleweird for us funeral home folks, But
since we're in the business of helpingfamilies say goodbye to their loved ones,
we will generally bend over backwards atmost any request, including letting them stay
and watch us work. Note familiesgenerally choose to stay in another room while
we make the removal, just incase something unfortunate or embarrassing happens while we
(10:07):
move the body of their loved one. Plus, I just think most people
don't want to see that an audiencealso puts a lot of pressure on us
to be perfect. I mean,I still get nervous for death calls,
so I don't like the feeling ofbeing watched, more so judged while I'm
doing my job. I personally wouldn'twant to watch my parents get bagged up
when they eventually die, but it'spart of the gig sometimes, so I
(10:30):
have to live with it. Teachhis own I guess, but seriously,
I put a considerable amount of thoughtinto this, so allow me to talk
it through. Why do some peopleinsist on being in the room. Is
it comforting to see your mother coveredin a sheet and zipped up on a
gurney before we wheel her out inthe caring fashion you've come to expect from
our funeral home over the last onehundred and fifty years. Maybe I mean,
(10:52):
Ned and I are kind of aShack and Kobe caliber team at this
point, so wanting to sit inthe room and watch work would be understandable.
Maybe the reason for staying in theroom would be to hold us accountable
somehow, to make sure we're notabusing or fondling their loved one while performing
our professional obligation. I mean,I guess there are some real sickos out
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there, but Ned and I aren'tthose type of sickos. Maybe they stay
in to ensure we don't steal anythinglike priceless keepsake or an easily concealable ninety
five pound oxygen tank. Regardless ofthe reasoning, it just leads to undo
awkwardness when something gross or weird happens, like when mom fully unloads her bowels
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in bed when her body is movedin even the gentlest of ways, filling
the room with a smell that shouldn'tbe associated with the memories of your loved
ones last night at home, whichis why we generally go in alone to
help shield people from the disgusting,undignified parts of death. Either way,
the Hernandez kids opted to stay inthe room with us, so Ned and
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I put our heads down and reverentlygot to work. Since the children are
present and this is a solemn andintimate circumstance, we took an old fashioned
approach to the call and decided notto wear gloves. This practice has mostly
fallen out of fashion unless we're makinga removal, where putting on gloves will
dehumanize the body in front of thefamily. There's something about snapping on gloves
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in front of a family that feelscallous and reminds them that their loved one
is no longer the person they knewand our actually hazardous biological waste. Ned
and I didn't discuss the decision togo gloveless. I just took the cue
from him after he flipped open thecot cover and made his way to the
body without reaching for a pair ofgloves. In typical fashion, Ned had
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the head end of the body whileI took the bottom half. When I
slid my left hand under missus Hernandez'sbutton legs, I felt a warm,
slimy sensation cover my palm and tipsof my fingers, which was followed by
a tremendous waft of hot post mortemshit that will undoubtedly fill the room momentarily.
The smell is comparable to regular shit, but far more pungent and putrid
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in nature than a standard living bowelmovement. As we're all trained to do,
I did my best not to WinCEor gag at the smell and disgusting
sensation on my hands, since thefamily was standing near bedside. When Missus
Hernandez's children saw my hand emerge fromunderneath her covered in the warm and surprisingly
green shit, the smell must havesimultaneously hit their nostrils, because two of
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the children quickly left the room.This was either out of pure disgust or
a feeling of embarrassment for their poormother, I bet. When discussing it
later, they told each other theirreason for stepping out was because it was
too painful to watch us move theirmom, but deep down, unspoken to
each other, they all know it'sbecause of the shit. Are you starting
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to see why you wouldn't want towatch us make a removal? Even the
easy calls are gross. Thankfully,the son that decided to stay in the
room went to the adjoining master bathroomwhile we were zipping his mother up and
brought me a large, wet,soapy hand towel to clean off his mother's
mess from my hand, before tellingme I could use the sink to wash
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up. This guy didn't have aproblem with the side or smell of poop,
so it's safe to assume from hisreaction that this wasn't his first time
experiencing his mother's shit, or he'sin a profession where he sees a lot
of it. Either way, kudosto that guy. I still can't stomach
it. While washing up, Irealized that somehow I only managed to get
(14:37):
a little bit on my suit coatsleeve. Thankfully, my coat was Scotch
guarded at the factory, so thepoop wiped right off. And that's why
I wear that black chap suit oncalls so much. Now it's fucking indestructible.
On the way back to the funeralhome with Missus Hernandez, I realized
I had gotten a small amount ofher ship under my index and middle fingernails.
The sight and realization of what wasstuck under my nail bed gave me
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the willies, I thought to myself, so this is how I get worms,
before raising my fingers to my noseand smelling. The loud, gagging
sound that erupted out of my bodystartled Ned enough that he asked me if
he should pull over. I toldhim not to and everything was fine,
before scolding him in a joking manner, this is why we wear gloves,
Ned. The second and third timeMissus Hernandez pooped on me took place in
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the operating room while we were preparingher body for services. As we were
sliding her body from the cot tothe operating table, the cuff of my
white expressman's dress shirt took unreparable damageand was tossed in the trash moments later.
By the time I noticed the poop, it had already soaked into the
tiny threads and stained the cuff withseveral greenish brown spots that could easily be
(15:48):
identified even after a good dry cleaning. Thankfully, I left a well worn
on Bruce McGhee T shirt at theoffice for yardwork the week before. Otherwise
I probably would have gone shirtless inorder to help Ned finished the task in
hand in a timely manner. Idon't think Ned would have been too into
that. The arrest of the preparationand embalming of missus Hernandez's body went swimmingly.
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She had great circulation, and thecolor in her face and body was
restored to a state that actually madeher look quite recognizable to the person I
had met in passing several times whileshe was living side note semi unrelated,
I thought Ned was for sure goingto blow up her neck like a balloon
with as much as he was injectingand massaging that area during embalming, but
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he didn't. During the cleanup,after we transferred her body to a dressing
table, I felt my foot slipwhile washing and sanitizing the operating table.
I looked down, and of courseI was standing in missus Hernandez's feces.
One might say I had literally steppedin it. At that point, I
was frustrated, but laughed at theidea that this dead body had it out
for me. I cleaned off thebottom of my dress shoe with a paper
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towel, but some of the poophad gotten into the stick the leather soul,
so while Ned was finishing cleaning upthe prep room, I was standing
outside the garage door in our parkinglot scraping the bottom of my shoe with
an old wire brush I found ina junk drawer. Despite my best efforts,
the poop soaked into the leather andwas smashed pretty good into the stitching.
(17:17):
I really didn't want to track thisshit into my car and taken home
with me, so I left thecoal hans next to the dumpster, hoping
they would air out, and drovehome barefoot. This wasn't the first time
I had to do this, andI'm sure it won't be the last.
Back in the yard, I havealmost fallen asleep in my lawn chair as
a single rain drop lands on myforehead. I opened my eyes to see
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that clouds have fully covered the skyabove me. A car with loud exhaust
and undoubtedly huge engine accelerates and screamsdown the road, startling me, ruining
my sense of feeling alone and remindingme how much I hate people, and
more importantly, how much I hatethose fucking cars. Nothing screams cool like
(18:02):
blowing out the ear drums of everyone and a half mile radius. My
level of annoyance instantly spikes, similarto my desire of witnessing a plane crash
at some point in my life.Someday, I hope to hear a loud
crash an explosion down the road whenone of those goofy ass hot rods peels
out in the middle of the night, agitating me and all my neighbors.
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It hasn't happened yet, but somedayit will, and it will be very
satisfying. That is, until Iget called out to scrape the guy's meat
off the inside of his windshield.Another rain drop lands on my arm.
It's cold, but refreshing. I'mactually kind of relieved it started sprinkling,
and that that asshole race past myproperty because now I know I won't accidentally
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sleep in my yard all night again. I say again, because it wouldn't
be the first time it happened.In fact, it wouldn't be the first
time it happened this month. Ireally have to be careful. Two weeks
ago, after a night of toomany cocked. My alarm clock was the
seven am underground sprinkling system turning on. It was quite a shock being blasted
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awake with cold iron filled well waterssoaking my clothes and body from every angle,
not to mention the sobering surprise ofrealizing I had gotten so fucked up
the night before I hadn't made itinside my house ten feet away. It
felt very rock and roll when Itold Net about it several hours later,
while we were parking cars for theAnderson Service. I figured he'd think I
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was cool upon my recounting of theevening's events, but in typical Net fashion,
he was unimpressed and actually made mefeel pretty terrible about myself. With
a left right combo of two expertlyjudgmental questions, He asked, you got
that drunk by yourself, followed bydo you do that a lot? Naturally?
I got defensive and lied and saida girl was over. But I
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could tell that Ned saw through myfib For as simple and boring as Net
as sometimes, he can occasionally bepretty perceptive, even if it's accidental.
Ned's passive judgment bothered me enough thatI thought about it all day and decided
it was time to slow down onmy drinking a bit. Hence all those
suckers I've been stuffing in my facelately. But I mean, now's a
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bad time to slow down on thedrinking because work's really been stressing me out.
Well, not the work itself,more the overwhelming nature of the schedule.
It's grueling. If I've said itbefore, I'll say it till I'm
blew in the face. This everyother night and every other weekend shit is
for the birds. That schedule justisn't conducive for long lasting, healthy adult
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relationships. I'm finding it difficult tohave friends or date anyone when I have
to be attached to the funeral homelike this. No one really understands the
schedule. They say they do,and in the beginning it's kind of quirky
and fun for them to be involvedwith someone in my line of work.
It's exotic and dare I say sexyto be with someone who deals so closely
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with death. But eventually the thingsthey found attractive up the job end up
being the things that annoy them themost. It doesn't feel very sexy or
cool to get stood up because misterJadario decided to mow his lawn in the
hundred degree heat after being sendary forthe last six months, and died while
pole starting as lawnmower. Just toask Annie, we had a date at
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a pizza place so a few weeksback, and that exact scenario left her
sitting alone for an hour before shejust decided to go home. I apologized
profusely via voicemail, but she hasn'treturned any of my calls. I can't
say I blame her either. Whyshould I expect someone I'm just getting to
know to put my work before theirneeds at once. I would cut baton
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run too if part of the dealwas getting blown off and left to wonder
when the hell I'd be walking inthe door every other night and every other
weekend. Mary didn't want this lifestyle, why would any other sane person.
It's safe to say this job isruined dating for me, or maybe it's
just my personality. Regardless, theselittle john's in my yard in the middle
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of the nine help me forget allthat. Today wasn't that bad. The
nine to five went pretty fast,and my nightshift has been a breeze so
far. I got called out alonearound eight thirty to go pick up Missus
Dallahanty at Crestview Nursing Home and washome by nine thirty. Missus Dallahante had
an unremarkable death, which if you'redying, is kind of the way you
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want to go out. It wasa real nothing call, uneventful and predictable
in every way in and out.If you're going to make a solo removal
in the middle of the night,all by yourself, Crestview Assisted Living in
Nursing Home is the place you wantto be. If we're comparing nursing homes
to hotels, this place is toBellaggio and all the other homes in the
area are super eights. They haveevery amenity imaginable at this place. They've
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got tennis courts, a full weightroom, rec center, movie theater,
beauty salon, and not to mention, an incredible cafeteria. I only know
that the cafeteria is excellent because bothof my grandparents on my mother's side died
at Crestview. It might be surprisingto hear, but a good cafeteria can
do wonders for your psyche. Whena loved one is dying at a nursing
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home, you never think of it, but you end up having a lot
of meals and snacks while you're justsitting around and waiting for someone to die.
Noe. The coconut cream pies musthave followed closely by their strawberry rhubarb.
Not saying you should go out ofyour way, but if you're in
the area, pop by, sayhi to an old person and grab a
slice. Aside from the whole grandparentdeath Association thing, Cressfew is kind of
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the ship. If it wasn't afifty five plus community, I'd fill out
an application to live there in aheartbeat. Residential amenities aside. The reason
for gushing about Crestfuw so much isbecause it was designed perfectly for making removals
helpful, staff a designated car part, and they make it a point to
make sure I remain mostly unseen byall the other residents. That's not only
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comforting for them, it makes mefeel a whole lot less awkward while I'm
working. There is nothing in theworld like walking past a nursing home cafeteria
in the middle of their lunchtime rush, pushing one of their dead friends out
of the building and reminding them thatthey too will one day be pushed out
in the same fashion, sooner ratherthan later. People react in two ways
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in that situation. They either pretendnot to notice or they stare. At
this point, I just look straightahead while I'm pushing a loaded cot past
a group of oldies coming down spaghetti. Making eye contact with one of those
folks will ruin your day. Butwhen it does happen, you just have
to nod with one of those It'sa shame we lost irma looks on your
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face while also not totally creeping themout with your next vibe. Cress View
has it figured out and will neverpurposefully subject funeral home employees to that.
With a private entrance and a staffequipped with earpiece walkie talkies, you're in
and out like a ghost, ormore appropriately, the grim Reaper. This
is all just a long way ofsaying, Missus Dallahant, the removal couldn't
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have been any easier, Like Isaid, in and out. To top
it off, she already had prearrangements for direct cremations, so I just
boxed her up and put her ina cooler when I got back. A
majority of the calls we've had sofar this summer have been direct cremations,
which has its pros and cons.Direct cremations are nice because ninety five percent
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of the time there's no embalming involvedafter the removal because there won't be services
or visitation where the body is present. Direct cremation is just a slick way
of saying fastest possible body disposal.No bells, no whistles. We pick
up the deceased, place them ina cardboard box, get the death certificate
signed, and within two days you'vegot mom back home in an eight by
(25:44):
six black plastic box or something moreornate. But you better believe something more
ornate isn't included with the price ofa direct cremation. You know us funeral
folks love our up sales. Directcremations are also considerably easier on the staff.
There's just not as much work involvedin a lot less room for fuck
ups. There are so many thingsyou can screw up in a traditional service,
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the makeup, the hair, theembalming, the flowers. The list
could go on, but with adirect cremation call, it's simple and transactional.
You pay us, we take careof your hazardous human waste. Over
the last several years, direct cremationshave been on the rise, partially out
of ease and convenience, but mostlyout of cost. Currently, our price
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for direct cremation out the door isright around eight hundred dollars, a price
it's hard to beat, which iswhy we've seen such an influx and that
type of service lately. People justaren't spending the money they used to on
traditional funeral services. The clouds havealmost fully covered the sky above me now,
and I feel a yawn start tocreep over my body, telling me
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it's time to go inside and goto bed. When my phone rings,
the caller ID says Ned. Ofcourse, the moment I decide to call
it a night, Ned decides toblow up my spot. Maybe he's just
calling to say hi, or tellme he's thinking about me. Doubtful.
I flipped my phone open and sayhello, Grant, it's Ned. We
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got a police call. Fuck,it's three thirty five. Now I'm on
my way. It's raining, nothingspectacular, just a light dusting enough to
make the roads wet and reflective.There's virtually no one on the road this
time of night, so I wasable to set my cruise control down Johnson
at forty seven miles per hour andhit every green light. While totally spacing
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out, I popped in my lastblue Tootsie Pop and listened to a nineties
playlist I had burned onto a CDlast week, It's kind of a Slammer.
While I was driving in I heardGood by Better than Ezra, Molly
Ringwald by Sponge and Possum Kingdom bythe Toady's. I ejected the CD and
placed it in my front left jacketpocket so I wouldn't be bored to death
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listening to shitty East Coast talk radiofor the next hour. Note I just
added to where the indestructible chap suitmentioned earlier when Ned told me it was
a police call. I thoroughly washedthe sleeve after the Hernandez incident the other
night, so there is no visibleor smellable evidence of the unfortunate mess.
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By the time I pull up tothe funeral home, Ned already has the
van loaded and pulled out into theparking lot. Even though the rain is
light and the van is parked,Ned still has the windshield wipers needlessly cranked
to full blast. I pull intothe spot next to the van tooed my
horn quickly to get Ned's attention.And wave like Forrest Gump at him,
my sucker stick protruding out of mygrinning mouth. He looked confused when he
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saw me, as he does mostevery time he sees me, and holds
up his left wrist tapping an imaginarywatch. WHOA no way back? Ned
must be in a hurry tonight.I locked my car and walk over to
the passenger side of the van.The sound of the windshield wipers scraping with
every quick pass is grating and almostlouder than the sound the running engine.
I grabbed the door handle and pullonly to realize it's still locked. Annoyed,
(29:04):
I knock loudly on the window asNed smiles while reaching down to unlock
the door, knowing full well howmuch this bothers me. The dome light
turns on as I opened the doorand see a tin of skull wintergreen long
cut chewing tobacco next to a fullsized piece of notebook paper with two words
written on it, Hillsdale Church.Ned quickly grabs the tin and the paper,
(29:26):
clearing my seat. As I saywe got called out to a church
on a police call? Ned says, no, there's an accident right in
front of it. I didn't haveto write the address because the Sheriff's department
told the answering service it would behard to mess. Intrigued, I fastened
my seat belt and pull out theCD from my front jacket pocket without asking.
I stick it in the CD sloton the dash while playfully staring in
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Ned, knowing how much this annoyshim. Ned hates it when I bring
music for the ride because it's usuallysomething he would categorize less as music and
more as noise. He told melast week that my favorite band, Humphries
McGee, sounds like six people allplaying different songs at once. This annoyed
me because it's mostly untrue. Thelow rumbling of the AM radio goes silent
(30:11):
for a moment before the opening drumfill of Harvey Danger's flag pole set us
sounds throughout the van. Ned,in typical old man fashion, immediately reaches
for the volume knob, turning itdown to a barely audible level. I
bite down on my Tootsie pop,breaking the shell, and throw the stick
out the window. Ned pulls away. Ten minutes later, Ned and I
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turn onto County Road seven and immediatelyare greeted by no less than five cop
cars and two fire trucks, allwith their lights on. We pull up
to the makeshift blockade of police carsblanketing both lanes of traffic. An officer
gets out of his car and walkstoward the van. Ned rolls down his
window and greets him with a Howdyofficer. Howdy, I think to myself,
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Ned's a dork. The officer nodsat Ned and acknowledges me. I
pantomime tipping an imaginary cowboy hat onmy head and say howdy officer in a
pseudo Southern accent. Ned shoots mea look of annoyance that I'm very familiar
with after being on call with himfor the last several years. The tension
between us is mostly of the ballbusting sword, but occasionally our odd couple
(31:22):
pairing wears us boat down. Theofficer interrupts our tense moment and starts to
fill us in. Just off theroad up here, we've got a vehicle
that collided with a tree at anextremely high rate of speed before catching fire
and burning the body inside to anunrecognizable lump of flesh and bone in the
driver's seat. The car is registeredtoo and Allen slay Ball, but there
(31:45):
was no wallet or id inside,or if there was, it was burnt
to a crisp. So currently we'redealing with a John Doe until we verify
an identity from the family. Theofficer continues by stating, we've got quite
a mess, and if we haveshoe coverings or coveralls, we should put
those on, otherwise we're probably goingto ruin the clothes we came in.
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The officer tells Ned and I,I'll move his car and let us through
to get closer to the accident scene, before walking back to his vehicle and
reversing five or six feet waving usthrough. Ned inches past the makeshift blockade
and pulls around the first fire truckparked in the right lane, revealing our
accident scene, illuminated by several largehalogen worklights set up on the gravel shoulder
(32:29):
of the road. It's a doozyabout ten feet off the road. There's
two identical trees separated by as sixor seven foot gap, and sitting in
that gap a car that's so badlyburned and mangled its make and model is
unrecognizable at first glance. All thewindows appear to be blown out, and
the back axle is perpendicular to thefront. I think back to about forty
(32:52):
minutes ago when that loud ass carblew past my house, and for a
split irrational second, I think mywish may have come Maybe this is the
same guy. Did I manifest this? Do I have superpowers? The rational
part of my brain flipped on andassured me that the call came in too
quick after I heard the car zoompassed. Logistically speaking, it would have
(33:14):
been impossible for that person to makeit to this side of town, crash,
die and burn up. The accidentscene of this John Doe we're on
now must have happened well over anhour ago, maybe two, and the
police generally don't invite us out tocrime scenes until the investigation is over,
so it couldn't be the same guy. At this point, the rain is
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let up, so thankfully it doesn'tseem like we'll be getting soaked on this
removal. Ned parks the van andwe get out, removing the cot and
putting on our gloves and coveralls.I pull a disaster pouch out of the
back of the van and unfurl it, knowing it will be much easier to
bag this body near the car thanit will be to drag the cot through
the grass and mud, given theprecariousness of this car's final destination. As
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we approach, the wind changes directions, and I'm a little disappointed at the
lack of burnt smell. Don't getme wrong, it definitely smelled like there
was a fire, but it didn'thave the hallmarks I was expecting in a
burnt dead body call. I'm mostlymissing the burnt hot dog smell I've grown
so accustomed to on these type ofcalls. I suppose it's still there,
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but the smell of burnt plastic,metal and rubber are masking it. We
park the cod on the shoulder nearan officer who's standing next to the car,
examining the scene with a high poweredled flashlight. The gravel shoulder is
muddy from all the runoff water thefirefighters used to extinguish the blaze. Our
white cover all footies are all butcovered in mud, and we haven't even
(34:43):
stepped off the road yet. Theofficer shines a flashlight at us and says,
over here, guys. Ned andI approach, our feet sicking into
the saturated muddy grass. As weget closer to the car, Ned blurts
out of nowhere wall, pointing,look, Grant, there aren't any skid
marks. This guy had no ideahe was done for, which I imagine
if you're going to get in acar accident that kills you, it would
(35:06):
probably be better to have no ideait's coming. Those last few seconds of
realizing you're about to die in arelatively empty area in a single vehicle accident
would be agonizing but also potentially embarrassingif your brain could process the information quick
enough. We stop when we getto the officers standing two or three feet
(35:29):
from the driver's side and he says, there is shining his light on the
driver's side door. Excuse me?What was left of the driver's side door.
It's semi accordioned and barely hanging ontoits hinges. Slashing closer, I
start to see things in the driver'sseat that vaguely resemble a body. I
say vaguely because the catastrophic nature ofthe accident and subsequent fire have made this
(35:53):
human considerably unrecognizable. But to behonest, I'm not that impressed or grossed
out with what I see because it'sall the same color black or shades of
black. This fire must have beenintense, but it makes sense given the
condition of the frame of the car. One of the front wheels is broken
(36:14):
off its axle, and the entirefront end of the vehicle has been compacted
into a V shape and almost mergedwith the tree where the primary impact happened.
The car must have been gray orsome shade of light blue before the
fire, judging by the small spotsof paint that were somehow unharmed in the
blaze. I see a shiny emblemof the car's make that must have fallen
(36:37):
to the ground un impact, andpointed out to Ned it's our axe.
I literally almost bought one of thesea few years ago, but settled for
something a little less flashy and honestly, after seeing its performance and this real
world crash test, I'm glad Iopted out. The officer shines his light
on us, temporarily blinding me,and says, you guys need anything then?
(37:00):
And I both reply with a pleasantno, thank you, but I
pipe up and ask how fast doyou think this guy was going? The
officer looks at the car and looksback at me before saying, I don't
know. Buck fifteen, buck twentyfive? Holy shit? He was flying.
I respond. The officer shines hisflashlight in my face and ask,
what's going on with you? Didyou suck off a smurf? Confused,
(37:22):
I say, laughing what. Theofficer replies, your mouth and lips are
blue. Puzzled for a moment,I shake my head, trying to decode
what he's saying. When I rememberthe suckers, I respond, Oh,
yeah, I ate a bunch oftutsie pops before I got called out,
giggling at my lack of awareness forwhat the dark blue suckers due to a
mouth after long exposure. The officerlooks me up and down before responding,
(37:45):
what are you in third grade?I giggle and say no, I'm an
alcoholic. Well aware that my responsewas no doubt confusing to the officer,
I start to unzip our disaster pouchand place it on the ground near the
driver's Doorfer holds his light over ourheads to help better illuminate the body inside
the car. Shit. This guyisn't just burnt to a crisp. His
(38:07):
whole head and upper body are blownwide open, most likely from the impact
on the steering wheel. This guydidn't have a seatbelt on which killed him
instantly and presumably saved him from thesuffering of being burned alive. I couldn't
imagine the blood curdling screams that wouldhave projected out of his car into the
open field while his skin bubbled andsplit off his body. I mean good
(38:30):
on him for not living through theimpact. Ned and I waste little time
getting to work. We both squeezeour bodies in front of the driver's door,
each grabbing a part of his burntbody. Ned grabs the legs as
time. I grabbed the meteor partof his arm and pull the top layer
of this John Doe's flesh, whichhad been fused with whatever clothing he had
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been wearing, slips and pulls offhis arm, revealing a fresher, less
burnt layer of muscular tissue, atissue standing out, red, head and
vibrant amongst all the other black aroundit. I tighten and firm up my
grip, pulling harder, now ignoringthe skin slippage. He doesn't move.
He's stuck. Ned had no issuegetting his legs out of the car and
(39:12):
looks at me, confused when hesees that half the man's body is still
in the vehicle. Use your muscles, the officer says, snickering to himself.
I pull again, this time harder, with very little movement. As
a result, the man's burnt andbroken head and upper body start to slump
out of the car to reveal what'sleft of his skull and face. His
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scalp and hair, or what's leftof his hair, is singed and matted
around his skull cap. Some boneand broken teeth are visible where his face
is split wide open. Yuck.I don't know where this guy's nose and
eyes are. I guess they couldbe burnt up, or they could be
embedded in his dashboard. His chestis completely caved in towards the center,
(39:54):
compressing his lungs and heart, which, if they're visible through the hole,
are hard to make out. Consideringthe severity of the fire, this must
have been a huge blaze. There'sno blood or visible red inside the body.
Everything's a soot written, black,wet mess. I look at my
gloves before readjusting my grip. They'rewet and covered in charred human mush.
(40:19):
It almost looks like I was pullingapart a brisket or a piece of meat
that had been smoking for days.I wipe my hands on my coveralls,
hoping it will secure a better gripon his body. For my next attempt,
I firmly placed both hands under hisarmpit and pull with no resolve.
Thinking quickly, not wanting to beembarrassed by my weakness, I place my
(40:39):
right foot on the car's frame andpush. While pulling the man's armpit,
he gives way. The body fallsto the ground, perfectly into the disaster
pouch. I moved my foot tostep down and hear the shoe covering of
my coveralls rip before placing my footdown with a splash. Shit, I
say out loud under my breath.I just stepped in an indented part of
(41:00):
the grass that allowed a substantial amountof water to puddle, soaking my shoe
and sock completely. I don't wantto think about what's in this water,
ned and I zip up and placethe disaster pouch onto the cot, loaded
into the van, and proceed totake the body to the hospital for an
autopsy. Uncomfortable, I wiggled mywet toes inside my shoe all the way
(41:22):
to the hospital and all the wayback to the funeral home. Friday morning,
seven forty six am, yawning uncontrollablyafter my marathon of a night,
I pull into the parking lot ofa Walgreen drug store on the corner of
Maine and Jackson to replenish my suckersupply. Along with being exceptionally tired this
(41:44):
morning, I'm also moderately irritated afterI realized I was going to have to
wear the shoes from the wet messof a death call last night to work
this morning instead of my usual dailydrivers my coal hans, you know,
the shoes that are still sitting bythe dumps lightly caked with missus Hernandez's shit.
Since I got home around four thirty, there really wasn't enough time to
(42:06):
air out the shoes and let themdry completely, so I'm currently wearing a
damp sock inside a drying shoe,which bothers me. I'm sure my irritation
will subside the dryer my foot feels, but right now I just feel gross.
I need a sucker. I openedmy car door and place my foot
on the ground, and I'm greetedby a familiar cold, wet feeling and
(42:28):
a splash. My shoe, footand sock are completely soaked again. I
stepped in another puddle. Damn it. Twelve thirty five pm. I'm sitting
at the large roll top desk inthe lobby of the funeral home on guard
duty while Ned and the other guysare at lunch. I have my shoes
and socks off, sitting under asmall fan in the other room, hoping
(42:50):
they will miraculously finish air drying inthe next fifteen minutes or so before my
dad's one o'clock appointment is here Athree piece black suit and bare feet is
an interesting look. I feel likePaul McCartney. My dad would kill me
if he saw me sitting in thelobby like this, but he's upstairs doing
paperwork, so he'll never know.The doorbell rings. Shit, it's the
(43:10):
back door, which is about twentyor so feet away. I don't have
time to put on my shoes,so I just stand behind the desk.
I hear footsteps approaching, sounds likeheels. A woman with dark hair and
a petite, athletic frame in hermid twenties wearing a slim cut gray pantsuit
walks into my field of vision.I greet her with a smile from behind
(43:30):
the desk, concealing my bare feet. She's cute. I think to myself,
Hi there, how can I helpyou? She replies, I'm here
for a job interview with Bill jobinterview. I didn't know we were hiring.
She doesn't really strike me as thefuneral home type. She's too pretty
and well groomed to be a funeraldirector. Well that's compared to the female
funeral directors I know. Smiling ather, I say, hold on,
(43:53):
let me intercom them. I callmy dad's office phone directly and tell him
his interview is here. Great,she's I like that. Do me a
favorite, Grant. I'm on acall right now. Why don't you show
her around the office. I'll beready for her and ten. I say
to my dad, copy that andhang up the phone. I stepped from
behind the desk and say, he'son a call right now. I'm actually
(44:13):
his son, Grant. He askedme if i'd show you around. She
shakes my hand and starts laughing.Hi, I'm Jennifer. You guys are
pretty casual around here, aren't youwhat I say, confused before looking down
at my bare feet. Oh mygod, that's a long story, but
yeah, we like to party here. Give me a second. I run
into the other room and put onmy shoes, still damp, leaving my
(44:34):
socks to dry where I left themfor the next fifteen minutes. I gave
Jennifer the nickel tour of our funeralhome before walking her up to my dad's
office. Right before I walk herin, I asked her not to mention
the barefoot greeting to my father.She giggles and says, don't worry,
grant your secrets safe with me anyway. I like to party two. She
says this to me as she winks. Oh my god, is she flirting
(44:57):
with me? I think she's flirtingwith me. Semi lustered, I walk
her into my dad's office and say, Bill, this is Jennifer. Jennifer,
this is Bill. I lead theroom and head back down to the
lobby, feeling the soggy remnants ofthe poddle inside my shoes squishing up through
my insul. I can't believe Istepped in two puddles in less than twelve
hours. I'm a mess, butam unbothered in this moment because all I
(45:21):
can think about is Jennifer's wink.She was flirting with me, right.
I hope my dad hires her inthis moment. I had no idea that
in a matter of weeks I wouldtruly learn what the phrase stepping in it
means after a long night of drinkingwith our newest employee, Jennifer. But
that's a story for another day.My name is Grant and these are my
(45:43):
Funeral Home Stories. Hopefully you enjoyedthis episode and are intrigued enough to listen
apart two of this story, whichwill be available a little further down the
road. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review it wherever you
listen to podcasts. It really helpsmore than you know. Also, please
tell a friend, co worker,podcaster, blogger, whoever about my Funeral
(46:04):
Home Stories. Word of mouth hasbeen how this podcast has been able to
grow so much over the last severalyears. And I can't tell you how
much it means to me that youshare this podcast with your friends. I
have every intention of finishing season fourin the next several months, so please
follow me on Instagram for updates anda bunch of other random shit at Pomo
and kitch, or just look upGrant Inman. Also check out my other
(46:28):
podcast, How to Become a TerriblePerson, which is the podcast I do
with my fiance and the Ai authora podcast where I let Ai write short
stories that I just get to read. Both of those podcasts are wildly different
than this one, but they're apretty good time. As always, thank
you for your patience and thank youso much for listening. See you soon.
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