blue moon (2)

Monday, June 09, 2008

Grave Diggers ©

I’m BACK but you didn’t know I was gone because I couldn’t tell you my Internet was down until they came by today and fixed it.
I lost my Internet for four days and was relegated to actually doing housework. BOOOOOOOOO, BOOOOOOOOO, BOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!

But it wasn’t all work there was a little play on Saturday.
I was sitting on the couch polishing the remote when the phone rang.
It was Mike; he said he was picking me up in 20 minutes to head off shopping.

“Huh, shopping for what”, I asked?
“We are going to look for graves and your mother said she wants you to come along”, he said.

FUCK THAT, I’ll just put then in a Nike shoebox like I did the cat and take them to the Humane Society for disposal, 25 bucks and it’s all done.
I just hope they don’t end up as pet food.

I hang up the phone and call my mother to find out WTF this is all about.
She answered and I told her about the phone call and she said yes she wanted me to go and to find out how much it would cost for four plots.
Four, why four?
She said she wanted one for each of them and one for each of us.
Huh, hold on, I am not exactly ready to go but I live next door to then now and the drive me nuts and they want me to live next door to them in death to.

I had my heart set on being buried face down on top of Sofia Loren.
Did you see the hoots on her and she says “they are real, baby”.

I told her I would go and hung up the phone.
I am not shy to say that shopping for graves is a little unsettling especially when they are still alive but in some ways it doesn’t hurt to be ready, I just wish this was done when I wasn’t old enough to have to do it on my own.
It’s not like going out to by a car.
What do you ask?

“Does the radio work”?

With a lot of my relatives and friends passing away in the last couple of months my parents must be rattled and are thinking about the end more than they used to.
When one of my aunts died at 76, my mother said, “She was so young”.
My mother will be 81 this year.
My grandmother died at the age of 99.

What is the age to die?

I have noticed my parents scrambling to get things done like selling overseas properties and renovating the houses for the future.
They have always looked out for us no matter how much trouble we got in.
Mostly me.
Now they are trying to make sure we are not left wanting or without a roof over our heads, even when we pass away too it now seems they want to make sure we are taken care of.

The doorbell rang and I opened the door for Mike and stepped out on the porch then locked the door and stepped down towards the car but Mike’s car wasn’t there. Instead our uncle’s car was waiting for us with smiling at me through the window.
I looked at Mike and he just shrugged and said that he wanted to buy a grave to.
WTF, this was beginning to look like a gravediggers convention.

My uncle, mother’s brother is a nice man but he has thing major problem besides his ultra conservative views.
He once stop speaking to me because I told him Christ was a Jew but he argues that he was not Jew but a Christian.

His big problem is that he is deaf but still argues that he hears just as well as he used to, probably because when he speaks he is actually yelling at the top of his voice so he could hear himself speaking and he also believes he speaks English flawlessly.
He read the weekly flyer once and called my father to tell him that they had lamb legs for $6.99 a dozen.
What the actually had was Frozen lamb legs for $6.99 a kilo.

Another thing about my uncle, he has this weird accent.
For fifty years he has been trying to make his Greek accent more Canadian but the closest he could come to is an Eskimo accent while eating raw seal meat, which doesn’t help with his bad habit of swearing.
My uncles swears A LOT but he doesn’t swear in English or Greek, no, he believes that everyone in Canada speaks either Greek, English or French so he swears in Lebanese and his favourite word is Sharmouta which mean whore.
It’s sharmouta this, sharmouta that where ever we go.

On the way to the cemetery my uncle is tell Mike and I that if we buy in bulk it will be cheaper.
I guess it’s cheaper by the dozen even when you’re buying hold.

Toasters are lucky.
They get recycled into vibrators; we get recycled into dirt and with my luck I’ll be the dirt some fat cow shits on 200 years down the road.

Can you imagine 2 million years from now aliens land on a earth that has been extinct for millions of years and then dig up the place for archaeological purposes and would find three perfectly preserved humans among the other graves filled with bones and plastic prosthetic parts.
Two looking like the day they died, Lenin and Evita Peron.
The third one is George Hamilton but he isn’t dead, he uses so many skin products he’ll live and look good forever.

They will come to the conclusion that humans were cyborgs, like the Borg of Star Trek because of the different mechanical parts among the bones.
They won’t be able to explain George Hamilton so they’ll bury him again.

We get to the cemetery and as soon as we get out go the car my uncle wants to go look at the empty graves.
I asked him why and he said he wanted to see what the view was like from the individual graves.

Now correct me if I'm wrong.
According to popular belief, when you die your soul goes to heaven, hell or now just newly added. Wal Mart replacing purgatory.
So if your soul travels away there is nothing in the empty shell to see where it’s laying.
Now, you could say t hat you picked a spot so that the people that love you will have someplace nice to go to, to remember you but when they kick the bucket, no one is coming.
Maybe a squirrel looking for some nuts will stop by and scratch mine.

Imagine if heaven was where you died.
What if you died on the toilet in some scuzzy washroom in a cockroach infested restaurant.
Your soul will spend eternity in that shit hole while your body is basking in the sun under an oak tree.

I told my uncle he could come back another day and piss on the one he wanted to mark his spot.
Then he said he wanted to look for a particular woman’s grave.
He said her husband told him she was buried here.
Imagine. 20,000 graves and he thinks he is going to go out there and find the one he is looking for.

We went into the main building with me leading the way followed by my uncle and then Mike bringing up the rear.
This way we know we can’t loose my uncle and spend the rest of the afternoon looking through the cemetery for him while he is laying all over the place trying to find one that fits him.

I walked in and to the counter past an open room filled with people saying their goodbyes to a deceased.
The receptionist turned and smiled at me and asked what she could do for me but as I was about to tell her why we were there my uncle shoved me aside and says to her “I want graves six you help me”.
Well that’s what he said but his thick Eskimo accent and lack of proper English it’s not what we heard.
We heard “I want you give me sex can you help me”.

She looked at him then me.
Mike told my uncle to be quiet.
I looked at the receptionist and told her that it’s been awhile for him then winked at her.
She looked at my uncle again and he gave her a big smile and nodded his head like he was acknowledging what he told her, which was he was looking for 6 graves not what his lack of English said.

I told her why we were there and my uncle jumped in and said he wanted six graves again.
She asked him why he wanted six graves but before he could say anything I jumped in and told her it was because he hates people and wanted to make sure he had no neighbours.
My uncle smiled a big smile again, nodding his head indicating he agreed with what I said.
She started laughing and told me that they close, that they close at noon on Saturdays and there was no one there to answer the million questions I had.

The second my uncle heard what the receptionist said his lips moved and in a crisp loud voice he said, “Sharmouta, no more graves”?
I looked at him then noticed the mourners behind him all had stopped and were now staring right at the reception desk and you know what?
They looked a lot like Lebanese people to me?

I told Mike to take him outside while I got some information about making an appointment to speak to someone.
The receptionist took my name and phone number and I took a card with the person I had to talk to about this.
As I was finishing with her Mike came back and asked me if I had seen our uncle.
Mike swears he only turned his back for a second and he was gone.
Great, now we had to go look for a Lebanese swearing Greek Eskimo.

We split up to cover more ground and I went straight for the washroom first before I swung back toward the reception desk where I saw him standing at the counter talking to the lady once more.
I rushed over and I could here her say, “Is she someone you knew”?

I walked up and she told me my uncle had asked her if she could tell him about the whereabouts of a woman that was buried there.
I told the receptionist it was someone he wanted to jump while she was still alive and never did but figures he may have a chance now that she is lying on her back.
I could see her eyes widen as I grabbed my uncle by the arm and walked him out to the front yard where I could see Mike off in the distance going from bush to bush looking for our uncle.

Have a nice day

Walker

17 comments:

Jenny said...

My Dad went "shopping" last December and for some reason, decided his BIRTHDAY was the perfect day to sign the papers on his new plot. AGGHGHGHGH. I guess I should have thanked him for taking care of this, but it was strange.

YOUR story is much more entertaining and I'm glad you're back and connected again.

How does your house look?

Unknown said...

I love a good accent story! My father used to chase me cussing at me with a Bulgarian accent that made running impossible without peeing in ones pants from laughter only to be caught and then having the snot beat out of me! As my late Aunt Mary said: "Everybody's nuts but us!" :D)!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

hey the lebanese-accent swearing eskimo is good! i think i like your uncle...try one in a chinese-canadian-french accent! btw..i think i have an uncle near you... if you see him..let me know! LOL

Weary Hag said...

Love the story! I hated it when my parents called to tell me they had just reserved (bought) their plots. Ugh. I wondered why they gave it as much thought as my mother described the place (the area) to me. Now I know.

When I go there, it's one of the nicest places around to go for a nice, long walk ... it's wooded, grassy ... there are trees, it's peaceful, quiet and I really feel serene in there walking around the place.

Who knew I'd find such tranquility there? Then again, both of them are there now ... so in a freakish, abstract way, it feels comfy to me.

Terri said...

I'm trying to picture what a lebanese eskimo accent would sound like. All I can do is smile!

As for the plots, be thankful they are taking care of it now. I can't tell you how many times I've been on the other end when things weren't taken care of and when someone dies, you just don't want to deal with all those details. It's actually been a comfort to me to know both my parents and Hot Rod's parents have already purchased their lots.

BlazngScarlet said...

All of us in my family have made it easy .....
we all want to be cremated.

My Dad has already made the "arrangements" for his funeral, including picking out the casket he wants to be viewed in for the funeral.
Personally, I don't want a viewing at some cold-ass funeral home.
Just cremate me, have a wild party while playing Earth, Wind and Fire, and then toss my ashes into the wind somewhere.

Peter said...

Yeah for cremation Walker, it saves plot shopping at least.

Walker said...

Anonymous Boxer: I now believe that it should be one of the first things you take care of so that its out of the way and out of mind.
The house looks like a total mess, but cleaner lol

Walker said...

Michael Manning: My father cracks me up all the time with his misinterp[reetation of what he hears and more when he argues the point.

Walker said...

JYankee: I already know that accent and I live on the border of Quebec and 3 blocks from Chinatown lol

Walker said...

Weary Hag: Going is to bring them back to life in our thoughts and to remember those times you spent together.

Walker said...

BikerCandy: I agree, doing this when the time comes would be to much to think about when you head and heart are in disarray

Walker said...

Blazngfyre: I want to be buried face down to everyone could kiss my butt LOL

I want to be buried so that I know I left a mark on this earth even though its just a scratch in the dirt.
Hey, you could sprinkle yourself over me :D

Walker said...

Peter: It does save time and money, plus you don't need someone to mow you lawn every week.

Karen said...

I'm definitely going to be cremated so no plot shopping for me. I haven't decided where I want my ashes scattered yet but I have picked the songs I want played at my funeral. Now if only I could be that organised in my everyday life I'd be set.

Fire Byrd said...

Well it beats actually shopping in Wal mart I guess on a sunny afternoon.....
Are the family including the uncle all wanting to be close together or is he to be being sent away so as not to disturb the peace with his swearing???
bbx

nachtwache said...

I've been thinking about donating my body to science, where medical students learn about the human body on corpses, before they're let loose on the living. They want healthy, complete bodies, so if I get diseased, or have too many parts missing, they wont take me. They'll cremate the body after it's served it's purpose and return the ashes to the family, at no cost to them.
Funerals are too bloody expensive! What's the embalming for?? You're dead!