The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Funeral costs

One of the shitty things about relatives dying, apart from the actual death itself of course, is the funeral costs.

My father-in-law's funeral

My father-in-law died this week and his death has cost €4,000. How is this possible? He's dead; it's not like he's gone on a shopping spree on Amazon.

Yes, it turns out that death is an expensive business. We had to pay for a coffin, a cremation, and other shite that somehow came to €4,000.

But I don't understand where the €4,000 came from. We chose the cheapest coffin, not an expensive one. So how can it cost that much just to burn a corpse? Give me 50 quid and I'll do the job myself. Seriously, all it'll take is a match and gasoline. We'll take the body to a secluded part of the beach and make a fire out of logs and sticks. We can make a day of it. I'll bring marshmallows and we can roast them on the fire.

My mom's funeral

My mom's funeral came to £2699. I know this because I kept the invoice.

The charges include:

• £70 for an organist. (That's the person who plays the church organ, not someone who takes your dead relative's organs. Though at £70 just to play a few hymns, they might as well be stealing your organs.)
• £450 for a 'Hampton Coffin' with 'fully lined interior' and 'appropriate fittings'. Excuse me but it sounds more like an Airbnb than a coffin? I've stayed in actual apartments that sound worse than that. And keep in mind the coffin was destroyed in a fire anyway, so technically we could have just used a cardboard box.
• £115 for 'floral tributes'. Who spends £115 on flowers? Granted, it's a funeral, but no-one cares about the flowers at a funeral. People just come to say goodbye to the deceased. Besides, funeral flowers are always depressing flowers that no-one likes. They could pull up some daffodils from the park instead. They're free and cheery.
• £390 for cortege services. That's just someone who drove the coffin from the funeral director to the church and then to the crematorium. Fuck off, I could have done that. Give me a hand to get the corpse in the boot and I'll do it in my Suzuki Alto.

How can death be so expensive? It puts me off dying altogether. I'm going to save money by not dying. That will show them.

And what happens if you refuse to pay for a relative's funeral costs? Would they just chuck the body in the river and call it a day? Somehow I don't think so. They'd have to follow some kind of rules and protocols, even people as viciously evil as funeral directors. So the next time a funeral director presents you with an invoice like this one, tell them to fuck off.

Talking to the relatives of the deceased

As a person with traits of autism, one of the worst things in life for me is talking to people. And this is even more so when someone's mum has died.

What do you say when someone’s loved one has died?

• I can’t ask them if they’ve seen the latest Game of Thrones episode because then I’m seen as uncaring
• I can’t mention the death because then they might cry
• I can’t ask them how much money they expect to get in inheritance because that's an inappropriate thing to say at a funeral for some reason

No, my best option in this situation is just to say nothing at all and remain silent. And that's not difficult for me because I'm usually quiet anyway.

And as an extra benefit, by saying nothing, people think I'm quiet because I’m sad. Which is true, I really am sad, but only in the sense that I'm a grown man who collects Pokemon cards and old Argos catalogues.

Flowers

As I already mentioned, funeral flowers are shit and no-one likes them. Your loved one has just died so why do you want flowers? It's just one more thing to take care of at a time when you'd rather cry instead. This is a time when you should be taking a break from responsibilities, not taking on more of them by having to keep flowers alive.

What's more, funeral flowers are always the shit depressing flowers. You'd think they would be bright and cheery to lighten the mood. But no. They're always colourless like someone's drained all the joy out of them. It's as though the idea is to make you even sadder and more depressed just by looking at them.

So don't send grieving people flowers. Just don't. Send them a Nando's gift card instead, at least they can actually use that.