My Crazy Dad…
My dad has made me promise that I would write a book about him before I died. I’m pretty sure he’s writing it into the will that I won’t get anything until I publish a book describing his crazy exploits and immortalize him in literature. The only problem I have is that I have no clue where to start! There are so many great stories to tell about him that it really will take a book to tell them all. But, here goes a shot at a crazy dad story…
I come from a morbid family. Death is accepted as part of life and we tend to joke about the inevitable as if it’s something seen in a sitcom or a new flavor of food. That being said, I have discussed my father’s death with him multiple times. I literally have a list of things that I have to do when he dies.Â
Step #1: pull the gold teeth from his mouth and make jewelry from it for my sister and me. That’s sick in so many ways. Not only does my dad want me to reach into his cold, dead mouth, but he wants me to reach in there with a pair of garage pliers and pull the gold teeth way in the back of his mouth! What if he goes into rigamortis? His answer to that question was, “well you’re going to have to do it one way or another, because I don’t want the damn mortician profiting anymore from my death!”
Step #2: take all valuable pictures off the walls and take all of my mom’s jewelry. He wants everything of value out of the house, the vault, the garage, the pirate treasure trunk buried somewhere in the desert and the random stashes I’m sure he has all over the place. I can imagine the map that he’s drawn for me will look something like a treasure map with big X’s at the places that I need to visit to get the valuables.
The list goes on and on, until we get to the funeral. The details of the funeral are still being hashed out. For a long time, my dad wanted to be cremated and thrown off the back of a cruise ship. He wanted us to go have a big party for his death. Again, he was writing it into his will…along with the treasure map.Â
However, recently, he’s been thinking that he wants to buried like a king. And, who were the ultimate kings? The Pharaohs of course! What does that mean? That means that my dad wants us to build him a pyramid on his land (which I will explain in another post…long story) and have him mummified! I would have to go on the treasure hunt with his crazy map and bury the treasure with him for some grave robbers to find sometime in the distant future. I wonder if he’ll buy a cat just to have mummified with him, or have his “servants” burried with him for the afterlife. I’m not sure who would qualify as his servants, but it damn well better not be me! While the idea of mummification seems like an interesting one for anyone to consider, I reminded my dad that to mummify him, they have to remove all of his internal organs, including sucking his brain out through his nose. That idea actually made him more excited about being mummified! He told me that was awesome and should be done to everyone before they are buried regardless of the method.
While most peoplemight jokingly talk about cool ways to be “put to rest,” most of them don’t actually mean it. My dad actually means it. I could see him commissioning the pyramid or making sure we had to go on a cruise with his ashes…and it would not be the oddest thing he’s ever done. Ironic, yes, since he technically would be dead and still influencing insanity, but fun never-the-less.