Please Note: As far as I know, I am in perfect health
and any rumors of my impending death are pure gossip and heartless taunting.
My kitchen cabinet knobs do not match, and I love that they
do not match, even though it drives Phillip, my son-in-law, batty.
He has informed me, “As soon as you’re dead, I’m changing
out these goofy, eclectic, bohemian knobs.” (That is the official title for my
decorating style—eclectic bohemian, which means I’m just this side of a gypsy
queen and not adverse to bleached animal skulls as chotchkies.)
Phillip always looks itchy when he tells me about his
de-knobbing of my kitchen on the event of my death. He mumbles about burning my
giant gourd that flips open on a hinge, but I think it’s just idle gourd
burning talk. It’s those knobs that really bug him.
I love those knobs for giving me a reason to live.
“Hey, Mom, come here and listen to the music we’re going to
play at your funeral.” Adam, my teenage son, looked pleased and proud as he
played the tune he had picked out for my funeral service. It was a
wonderful, sentimental, joyful choice. I wept. It made me sorry I wouldn’t be
there what with the excellent choice in music and my son-in-law in attendance,
counting down the minutes until he’ll be free to take the knobs off my kitchen
cabinets.
The subject of my death and funeral seems to prove an
endless source of amusement for my family; they’ve already decided that in
place of a eulogy, they’ll be holding a “Mock-ogy,” which, apparently, is not
dissimilar to a “Roast.” First, they’ll play that really cool music and then
someone will stand up and announce, “Let the mocking begin.”
Since it’s my funeral, I have a few suggestions for my
enthusiastic, smart aleck family. And since I have an irrational fear of being
IN something, UNDER something (for example I have an irrational fear of being in
a car under the water, or in a New York City subway under New York City, or in
a box under the ground) I would like to be buried above the ground. Perhaps I
might be buried in a pyramid, assorted safety deposit boxes, catacomb, or
eagle’s nest in the back pasture.
My preference is the eagle’s nest, and I would like to be
rolled to the nest using the little red wagon with the jittery wheels. An
America flag should be flying at half-mast from the back of the wagon.
Crying is right out! Very few people look attractive
crying, and I won’t have it. There should be folk dancing, but I’m not sure
when to fit it into the schedule, and since Phillip is going to remove them
anyway, I’d like to be buried with my knobs and my thesaurus.
Please consider this posting a legal expression of my final
wishes.
The advantage of having garnered the reputation for being a
little eclectic and a lot bohemian during one’s lifetime is that people expect
to see graffiti on the walls inside your house and bowling balls in your
garden, and if they show up to your funeral they won’t be surprised by the free
coupons to Golden Corral that will be handed out at the door.
Linda (Gypsy Queen of the Buffet Line) Zern
