When I was young, my father owned a construction company. When his Grandmother (my great-grandmother) died, my father built a lovely coffin for her, as a tribute, he said.
We loaded it into the RV and drove to Hurricane, Utah (the ancestral home of the Hall family). I was allergic to the stain used on the coffin and coughed my lungs out the whole way there.
When we arrived, it was determinded that since Dear Great-Grams had died while being propped up on pillows, she wasn't flat enough to fit in the coffin my father had made. My Grandmother actually used the phrase, "I don't want my mother's face smashed in that coffin for the rest of her life!"
*VJ giggles, then bows head and repents flippancy*
So we had to take the coffin home. Cough, cough, all the way home.
My mother banished it to the rafters of the garage, despite my requests to use it as a coffee/coffin table. And there it sat, scaring anyone who looked up.
"Um, what's that?"
"My Great-Grandmother's coffin."
*terrified stare*
"She's not in it or anything."
"Um, ok. But that only makes it marginally less creepy."
"Good point *hacking cough*"
When I was in High School, my boyfriend at the time, Josh Cantor, had to do a presentation on a poet, and his poet was a particually morbid one. Part of the project was to bring a prop that symbolized the poet. (You see where this is going.) He was making a cardboard tombstone, but I told him he could borrow our coffin. No, surprisingly, that's not why he broke up with me. He broke up with me because he said God was calling him to a single life. (If you are reading this, Josh, say hi to your wife.)
So anyway, we discoved that few things attract more attention than walking through a private high school with a full sized coffin. I told my biology teacher it was a march to bring awareness to pediatric AIDs in Nigeria and she gave me extra credit (score!). I told the admittance office that it was my pet dog and that I would need time off for therapy. (double score!)
There is no moral to this story or even much of a ending. Just thought it was funny.
We loaded it into the RV and drove to Hurricane, Utah (the ancestral home of the Hall family). I was allergic to the stain used on the coffin and coughed my lungs out the whole way there.
When we arrived, it was determinded that since Dear Great-Grams had died while being propped up on pillows, she wasn't flat enough to fit in the coffin my father had made. My Grandmother actually used the phrase, "I don't want my mother's face smashed in that coffin for the rest of her life!"
*VJ giggles, then bows head and repents flippancy*
So we had to take the coffin home. Cough, cough, all the way home.
My mother banished it to the rafters of the garage, despite my requests to use it as a coffee/coffin table. And there it sat, scaring anyone who looked up.
"Um, what's that?"
"My Great-Grandmother's coffin."
*terrified stare*
"She's not in it or anything."
"Um, ok. But that only makes it marginally less creepy."
"Good point *hacking cough*"
When I was in High School, my boyfriend at the time, Josh Cantor, had to do a presentation on a poet, and his poet was a particually morbid one. Part of the project was to bring a prop that symbolized the poet. (You see where this is going.) He was making a cardboard tombstone, but I told him he could borrow our coffin. No, surprisingly, that's not why he broke up with me. He broke up with me because he said God was calling him to a single life. (If you are reading this, Josh, say hi to your wife.)
So anyway, we discoved that few things attract more attention than walking through a private high school with a full sized coffin. I told my biology teacher it was a march to bring awareness to pediatric AIDs in Nigeria and she gave me extra credit (score!). I told the admittance office that it was my pet dog and that I would need time off for therapy. (double score!)
There is no moral to this story or even much of a ending. Just thought it was funny.
1 Comments:
Hee hee hee. I am sitting here giggling about your story. Hee hee hee!
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