The Most Embarrassing of All Possible Funerals

My great Aunt Tabitha’s problems began when her heart went lub instead of dub. My problems began the morning of her funeral. I awoke to see my father and my uncle loading a motor-home wearing t-shirts and shorts. Three things were wrong with this:

1. They were loading a motor-home.

2. They were wearing shorts and t-shirts.

3. We were going to a funeral.

I stared at them, in my suit, slack-jawed. “Hey… uh… Dad?” At this, both my Uncle Mike and my father turned their heads. “Are you guys seriously going to take a motor-home to a funeral?”

“Well no shit Sherlock, did you have to go to NASA to figure that out? There’s no sense in all of us driving up separately.”

I looked at them for a while longer. “I mean… for real?”

They looked at me angrily.

“Really?”

“Brandon!” They roared in unison.

I turned to go back into the house, paused, and turned back. “Are you guys at least going to change your clothes?”

This time it was my father that spoke up. “Fuck Brandon! Get some sense! It’s the summer… it’s too fucking hot to wear anything else.”

I tried to explain to them that the family of the deceased might like it if they showed a little respect by wearing suits, but they wouldn’t listen. I figured I could always just distance myself from them at the funeral.

Over the course of the next half an hour, the Woods clan came together. Women with the build of dinosaurs and men with swaggering bellies parked their cars in my front yard, cussing and slapping each other on the back. It was going to be a tight, hot, smelly two hours to the funeral.

I was crammed into a 33 foot by 4 foot space with about fifteen of my relatives. I felt like I was on a charter plane to some African nation in civil war. One of my aunts was wearing a muumuu and had chocolate from a candy bar smeared all over her face. A whole array of toddlers, dressed only in diapers and shirts, crawled around on the floor.

Only an hour on the road and I could tell we were going to be late. The motor that was strong enough to carry over ten tons of steel and accessories was not strong enough to carry all of my larger than life relatives. We were driving at a snail’s pace.

Despite the fact that we were running late, everyone decided that the children were hungry. Everyone was so eager to feed the children, in fact, that when I suggested Del Taco might not be a suitable diet for them, I was politely told that it was the “closest” and I needed to stop being an “asshole.”

Fifteen minutes later everyone in the motor-home, but me, was stained with salsa and refried beans. I heaved a heavy sigh. I could have tried to explain… but no one would have understood what was wrong.

I spent the remainder of the trip trying to avoid having one of my aunts exhale her taco-breath into my face. When I saw the funeral parlor I was actually relieved.

However, from my vantage point in the middle of a crowd of my sweaty, tightly packed relatives, I could not see that there was no one in the parking lot. The funeral had already started.

“Fuck, the funeral has already started!” my uncle Mike roared.

“Then I guess we’ll just have to wait down here till it’s done,” I offered.

It might be a little awkward afterwards when we met with the family, but I figured that after all we had been through already it would hardly matter.

My uncle, as if he hadn’t heard me, yelled, “Damn it! We’ll never be able to walk up there before it’s done!”

At this point my “oh shit” face was on in full force. I rested my chin against my chest, and sighed.

“Well then just drive up the fucking hill, Mike. Don’t be a pussy.” I looked at the heavens and asked God why my father had to say that.

I did not see it, but I can imagine that after being called “a pussy” my Uncle Mike began to shift gears and head up the hill the funeral was taking place on.

Imagine this scene: as your mother is being laid down to eternal rest, tears of sorrow falling down your face as the preacher, quite literally, is saying “ashes to ashes dust to dust”, a 33 ft motor-home full of relatives you have never liked comes roaring up the hill, and parks right next to the whole procession. The preacher stops reading his lines, mouth agape, and the whole assembly turns their head to the new spectacle that has entered the scene.

From in between a pair of plastic blinds you can make out the looks on everyone’s face. It is one part horror and one part “is this really happening?” Just as you think the tragedy can’t get any worse, the door swings open and a large woman in a muumuu with dried, crusty chocolate on her face steps out followed by a flood of toddlers in diapers. More of the same follows. Last to exit this motor-home are two men in shorts and tank tops, both of whom take a moment to light a cigarette before shaking hands and asking everyone “how the fuck” they’re doing.

My great Aunt Tabitha’s daughter was stunned beyond rage. She even stopped crying she was so taken aback. Her mother, a wonderful, bright and happy woman was being put into the earth and my Uncle Mike was coughing deeply, as he had just finished a cigarette, throughout the end of the process. He had interrupted the closing moment of a great old woman’s life, and as far as I could tell, didn’t seem to notice.

At least he wasn’t a pussy.

I hid in the motor-home and wondered if it was possible to hang myself with dental floss.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: My family actually reads this site, and I want to make it clear that while I sometimes make fun of them (often with good reason) that I love every member of my family… except my sister Rachel. Fuck her.