How to Write Your Own Kick Ass Obituary

Let's be honest, most obituaries are not all that good. The worst part about them is that you are never around to read your own obit and see what a great person you were. Here are some great ideas if you want an exciting obituary that everyone will enjoy reading. As a bonus, you can get even with the people that made fun of you in high school and make a few bucks.

1. Write your own obituary
It is imperative that you write your own obituary or have a trusted friend do it BEFORE you die. If you do not, your Aunt (who has her own blog and fancies herself as a “writer”) will type it up and it will suck and you’ll be stuck with an awful summation of your life.
Once you do finish writing your own obit, make sure you send a draft copy out to all your family and friends so that they can miss you while you are still alive. They will then have the opportunity to pay to be included in the obituary (see section #5) or pay to be excluded from the obituary (see section #8.)

2. Don't give them the satisfaction
Most people will suggest you start off an obit with the person’s name, the date they died and how they died. I suggest you start off with “You are not going to believe this!” or “Guess what that fat f*ck Bob did now” or “You were right.” Don't include your age so that your friends don't get the satisfaction of outliving you.

3. Doug who?
No one knows you by your real name so why die by that name? Nicknames that were used independently of your name go in quotation marks in the middle of your real name.
Robert “Stacks” Gutfruend
Joan “Cookie Monster” McCreedy
Nicknames that were part of your job or the reason you went to jail go before your real name:
“Handsy” Jim Handland
“Luscious Diamond” Tina Ralph
“Tea-Bag” Bill Billingsworth
Or if you don’t want anyone to know you died, just post a fake nickname.
John “Two-Sack” Christopher
If you didn’t have a nickname in real life, make sure you make one up or tell your obit writer your suggestions before you die. And don’t post your middle name. We’re not monogramming a sweater here.

4. Rhyming and haikus make for great obituaries
I suggest trying them together.
You smoked like a fire
Now you're atop a pyre
No flowers please, Thanks!

5. No one cares
No one cares about who died before you or how many cousins you have that are still alive. If your relatives want in your obit, charge them $5 - $10 a mention.
No one cares where you went to school or where you earned your associates degree. List your favorite bars or hang outs. People are more likely to remember Johnny “Cantaloupes” Mullroy from the bowling alley, rather than a graduate of Lancaster High School class of 1988. (Go Gales!)

6. People like excitement
Don’t die of cancer. Die of a space borne alien parasite.
Don’t die in a car accident. Get hit by a meteorite.
Die a hero (stolen from Royal Tennebaums) "Died Tragically Rescuing his Family From the Wreckage of a Destroyed Sinking Battleship."
And do not fail to give a reason for why you died or people will assume it was from something embarrassing. Everyone knows that a non-mention means "bled to death from a masturbation accident."

7. Get donations now
There are services that will “loan’ you a lump sum of money now and get that money back when you die through the "Please donate to" charity suggested in the obituary. The loan companies have names like, “The Amerikan Heart Foundation” and “The Redd Cross” and “Amway.” At the bottom of your obit, have money sent to them in lieu of flowers. If you can’t come up with enough donations to cover your loan, they will take your suit/dress, coffin and body parts to make up the difference.

8. Let those jerks have it
An Obituary is the perfect time to get back at all the people who have pissed you off your entire life. Being dead is the perfect cover for a lie or to let out a really stinky truth. Here are a few examples:
-I never loved you (insert family member’s name here.)
-Coach Rogers touched me on my pee pee after baseball practice.
-I had herpes. Now I have worms.
-Aunt Tina, I was and always will be a Red Sox fan.
-My G-mail and MySpace password is clicktowin34. Go ahead and read my e-mails, honey.
This is also a perfect opportunity for relatives to make “pre-donations” to be excluded from this portion of the obituary. For $10 now, Uncle Bob won't get outted. For $50 neither will your Uncle Lou whom you found with Uncle Bob.
Here is my Obituary, just so you know:

Doug “Holyjuan” Messerschmit
Well, you can all stop placing your bets. Doug is dead. You won’t see him at B-Hampton’s or at Skully’s anymore, but you can see him Ray’s Funeral Home this Wednesday from 6 – 8pm. The parts of his body that were not destroyed when he dove on top the improvised nuclear device and thus saved the city will be on display. HolyJuan liked to dance poorly, drink quickly, tell the same stories and flirt with the ladies. He owned two bowling shirts and 12 pairs of Converse. He is survived by his parents ($20) and one sister ($5.) Donations can be made to the American Kancer Society and my brother used to stick Legos in my butt while I slept.

The Friend Tiers


Terry and I were talking about friendship.  How do you categorize friends? Aren’t friends just friends?   I say no. I think that friends are divided up into tiers.  There’s tier one friends and then everything else drips down from there.  Allow me to explain:

Tier One Friends: These are your closest friends. In fact, they are your most hated of friends. These are the friends that you have to deal with.  If they screw up, you are there to hold back their hair while they puke or lie to the cops.  You carry their baggage. You live their lies.  You are there when they need you and there when they do not want you there.  You forgive them.  You forgive them again. You help them into rehab.  You help them back into rehab.  You loan them money and never expect to get it back.  They make mistakes and you yell at them for messing up again. You diss all your other tiered friends because they need you.  You love them and you hate them. But best of all, they are there for you when you are throwing up or getting arrested or coming down off a black tar heroin binge. You cannot get rid of them and they cannot get rid of you.

Tier Two Friends: These are the best friends.  You can hang with them.  You can listen to their woes without getting involved.  You help them when they need a hand and if you’ve got some other pressing issue, they understand. They are there for you when you have a flat, but you would never expect them to do more than call AAA.  They loan you money and expect you will pay them back.  They know when to walk away. They know when to leave you alone. Tier Two friends sometimes make it to be Tier One friends, but you hope they don’t. These are the people that help you move when you buy a new house.

Tier Three Friends:  These are your Tier Two friends’ friends. You see them at the grocery and you only talk about the common friend.  They are the work friends that will someday be Tier Two friends, but not today. They wave and say hello, but don’t ask you about anything more than the local baseball team or work related issues.  They will bring you back lunch if it isn’t an inconvenience.  Sometimes they think of themselves at Tier Two friends and you listen to them patiently and then promptly shove them into the Tier Four Friend category.

Tier Four Friend: These are the people you have to be friends with.  Your neighbor who keeps harping on your mowing technique. The parent of your kid’s friend who does not share the same basic set of interpersonal communication skills. All religious leaders. Most real estate agents. At night you secretly dream of killing them.

Tier Five Friend: Anyone on Facebook who does not fall into any of the above category.  They are idiots and you have no clue why you even still interact with them except that they were born in the same year as you and you graduated at the same time.

Palmerfest: Then and Now - A comparison of the 1991 and 2017 Ohio University street party

You can be in a place and understand it, but once you move on and see it from a distance through time, you begin to see it through the filter of all the memories between now and then, and it becomes something else.

 On April 20th, 1991, the very first Palmerfest occurred*.  Palmerfest is a yearly event at Ohio University where residents of Palmer Street in Athens, Ohio hold house parties and the yards and porches up and down the street are flooded with people drinking and celebrating. While the event was initially held in April, it was moved back to May because we were all sick of possible cold weather.  I have a feeling that Ohio University switched from quarters to semesters so that Palmerfest would have to be pushed back into April and cold weather might dampen the insanity.

(*Actually, it was the 2nd Palmerfest.  The first one happened six months earlier in October.  But we learned our lesson and moved the party to what we thought would be a warmer part of the calendar.)

I lived in the Lakeview Apartments in the spring of 1991, but Joe, Paul, Amy, Betce and Squirrel lived at 19 Palmer.  Most of us had lived together the year before in Martzolff House and so I was very good friends with them.  Due to the party we had the previous October, there was a desire to have another street party when it was warmer.  The day before, Chris and I searched the surrounding area for the shared “stage” that the bands would play on.  It consisted to two sections, both made from 4’x8’ sheets of plywood and 4”x4” legs. I don’t think the stage belonged to anyone, but it floated from party to party as needed.

On the day of Palmerfest, the drinking started at around 1pm when the beer trailer was opened with an astounding 17 kegs of beer.  People that lived on Palmer had each thrown in $10 or so towards the beer, though some threw in more and several did not throw in any at all, which led to future Palmerfests where houses bought their own kegs. Though it was cold, the turnout was sizable and the beer truck ran out sooner than expected. Partiers walked down to the corner stores and emptied the coolers of beer cans and bottles.  Four bands played throughout the day and there were very few issues outside of a bottle thrown at a house, an impromptu bonfire, thousands of cans and bottles strewn through the yards and a huge freaking water bill from people using the 19 Palmer bathroom.  The police shut the party down at 10pm due to noise and people dispersed to pass out or to head uptown.

In the  1991-92 school year, I moved into 19 Palmer.  This year the party was moved to May and houses held their own parties.  We made t-shirts this year.  It was warm enough that we were able to play wiffle ball and volleyball before things go too busy.  We set the stage up again and bands played throughout the day.  I thought it would be a great idea to turn off the water to the bathroom so people wouldn’t use the toilet.  People still used the toilet.  I was shooting bottle rockets out of my large beer cup and didn’t seemed concerned that I was drinking sulfur and ash.  I wish I could remember the girl who offhandedly named the drink, “firecracker juice.”  This year seemed busier than the year before.  More people were coming in from out of town to attend. I was unavailable for consciousness when the police shut down Palmerfest in ’92.  The next morning, I woke up and picked up the cans out of the back yard for about an hour and wondered why my mouth tasted like brimstone.

A still surviving 1992 Palmerfest t-shirt


I went to the 1993 Palmerfest as a guest, though I was involved with the minority faction of people that tried to get the date moved.  I forget why changing the date was important at the time.  This was the year I took the following horrible panoramic photo.  Still fun. Still didn’t get closed down until late.



I then took the next  15 years off.

In 2009, I got a call from The Post looking for an interview about the original Palmerfest.  I spoke to them about what I remembered and I thought about attending, but did not.  2009 was the first year of the “near riots” on Palmer. The 2009 – 2011 Palmerfests were some of the most chaotic, as people escaped the confines of the yards and flooded the streets with thrown bottles, fires and massive arrests. Police patrols had been increasing over the years as well as the arrests.  The Athens Police department purchased what they called a “communications vehicle” that they specially modified so officers could stand on the top and monitor the street. To me it looked like some kind of armored military vehicle.  Parties were beginning to get shut down earlier and earlier. After the incidents in 2009, the City of Athens created the “Nuisance Party” law.

2017 rolled around; it would be the 27th Annual Palmerfest. In some text exchanges with my niece, I discovered she would be attending Palmerfest and my brother would be coming down as well.   I decided to make this an educational /historical trip and I sent a letter to the residents of 19 Palmer. Actually to the residents of 19 Palmer A and 19 Palmer B because the house had been turned into a duplex.   Here’s the letter.




Both sides of 19 Palmer actually responded and invited me to attend. When I asked about what time I should come down and suggested 11am, they both replied that might be a bit late, things would be kicking off around 7am and that I shouldn’t delay.  What happened to sleeping in until noon?

So at 7:30 am on Saturday, April 8th, 2017, I jumped in the family van with an Ohio University shirt, a  note pad, and a sleeping bag in case things got too crazy, and drove to Athens, Ohio. 


I parked on Hocking Street, which is one parallel street over from Palmer. At 8:30 am, things were already started, even on the ancillary streets.  I wandered through the back yards to the front of 19 Palmer Street.

19 Palmer Street 2017
This is where I stop and correct myself when I said, “back yards.”  When I was at Ohio University, the back yards of 19, 21, 23, 25 and 27 Palmer Street were grassy expanses.  We played volleyball, wiffle ball, laid out blankets, kept ducks and passed out in the soft embrace of the grass.  Around 2004, the owners of those properties added a second house to the back of the original houses and paved the rest of the area to make parking spaces.  It’s a cold, concrete expanse where volleyball would be painful and passing out leads to concussions.  I’ll be bringing up this point later and it will be on the quiz.
21 Palmer Street on the left going down to 27 on the right

When I came around to the front of 19 Palmer, a girl (Ellen) took one look at me and said, “Are you Doug?” I was.  She said they were expecting me.  She got the other Ellen, who I had been in communication with, and they gave me a beer and a tour of the house.  Outside of there being another house strapped to the back of it, 19 Palmer has not changed much in 27 years.  They turned most of the back porch into a 2nd bathroom and used the leftover bits to widen the kitchen.  There were some new windows and all the windows that used to face the backyard were now half windows that faced the addition in back.  Ellen, Ellen, Katie, Kristie and Allie were all super nice and allowed me in their bedrooms which was different from 1991 when I couldn’t get in any girl’s bedroom.  The bedrooms were almost exactly the same with the additions of a few coats of paint.  Same wood floor and trim and plaster walls with old light fixtures.  The kitchen was wider than ours with counters on either side.  They had my letter up on the refrigerator, which made be a little bit proud. 

After sharing some stories about the original Palmerfest, I headed to 19 Palmer B.  Kristen welcomed me and introduced me to (sorry if I get a name wrong) Alexis, Emma, Monica, Emily and Toni.  Their place looked completely updated, even if it was built in 2004.  My letter was on their refrigerator, too. They had a DJ on their porch and a large amount of vodka. 

As I waited for my brother and niece to arrive, I bounced between the front and back of 19 Palmer, observing, taking notes and photos. I think people thought I was a cop. As it got closer to 10:00 am, things were really picking up.  The front yards were filling up and even the concrete desolation in the back started to fill with people drinking, throwing Frisbees and a football. I guess some things don’t change.

Steve and Sydney showed up around 11:00 am. Sydney is the same age I was when the first Palmerfest happened. We drank from the three cases of Miller Lite that Steve brought. We hung out at 19 Palmer for a bit, wandered down to 23 Palmer before heading over to Palmer Place.

Steve, Sydney and HolyJuan



A number of curious people were brave enough to walk up to me and ask me what the hell I was doing there. I got to tell them that I was one of the original people that started Palmerfest. They were interested in listening to grandpa tell his stories.  At one point as I was walking from 19 Palmer to 23 Palmer, a guy standing in a circle of dudes yelled out, “Hey, Dad! What are you doing here?” I do not think he expected me to turn around and confront him and his group with, “Listen here, you mother fucking punk kids. I started this fucking mess and you need to show me some respect.”  With that, we all laughed and I told them about what it was like before electricity.

In the end, we finished drinking around 2:00 pm and I walked past 19 Palmer to see them being cleared out.  We went to my brother’s illegally parked RV and rested for a few hours before heading Uptown to eat dinner.  By 8:00 pm, I was done.  I walked back to Hocking Street, got into the van and drove down the mostly empty Palmer Street and headed back to Columbus.

THE COMPARISON
The difference between the 1991 Palmerfest and 2017 Palmer Fest are many, but luckily there are some things that don’t change. I interviewed both 19A and 19B Palmer and this is what I discovered about Palmerfest now.

DATE:
Back in the 90s, we chose (and sometimes fought about) what date Palmerfest would occur on. At some point, once semesters were instituted, Palmerfest became locked in to the school calendar. There is a drumbeat of weekends that happen after Spring Break: Mill Fest/Congo Fest, High Fest, Mom’s Weekend (MILF Fest – ha!) and Palmerfest (with Palmer Place Fest happening the day before.) In speaking with people, they didn’t even think that you could have ever even created a date for Palmerfest… it just happens.

CASES OF NATURAL (NATTY) LIGHT
Tons of cases of Natty Light, just like the original Palmerfest. Some things never change.  Also saw a few brown bags with 40ozers which brought back memories.

FASHION:
People are still wearing dumb shit. I did notice there were less bras.

BANDS:
There are a lot less bands and more DJs. I saw four DJs as I roamed about. Some of the DJs are sponsored. I didn’t there there was going to be any bands, but one pulled up around 11:00am, played and then got out of there by 2pm.  My understanding is that in the mid-90s, the bands got bigger with larger stages, lighting and sound boards. That all stopped when the back yards went away.


BACK YARDS:
This is a biggie.  As I mentioned before, back in 1991, the houses had back yards and the party was contained to the individual houses and the large back yard area. The only reason to be in a front yard was to cross the street.  When the duplexes were built to the backs of the houses, this pushed people from one big open space to the front yards.  This created more opportunities for drunk people to interact with the sidewalks and street where cops are allowed to patrol. While the number of people I saw at this year’s Palmerfest would have overflowed the backyards, containing the party to that area might have kept the pressure off people creeping on to the sidewalks.   FUN OBSERVATION: almost everyone I saw crossing the street with a cup held it upside down to show it was empty.

1994 Satellite photo of Palmer Street. You can see the space behind the five houses in a row.
The five houses with duplexes and parking lots.
POLICE BEFORE THE EVENT :
Full credit goes to the Athens City Police on containing this madness in a calm and orderly chaos.

Here’s their system:
A few weeks before “Fest Season” starts, the City of Athens sends out a mailer with the rules and regulations about parking, open containers, fires, temporary fences, stages, Port-a-Potties, etc. A few days before the specific party weekend, police will go door to door to talk with the people that live at the house and make sure they are aware of the Nuisance Parties City Code and that they will be held responsible for any person on the property who is breaking the ordnance. They also remind houses that any they will be fined for any trash in their yard that is still there at 9:00 am the following day.

This was from the Mill Street Fest, but you get the idea.

POLICE DURING THE EVENT:
At the original Palmerfest, the Athens City Police showed up.  I assume that in the following years that the Sheriff’s Department might have joined the fun. In 2017, I saw the following:

·         Athens City
·         Athens County Sheriffs
·         Glouster Police
·         Logan City Police
·         Lancaster City Police
·         Dublin City Police
·         Ohio State Highway Patrol

The most obvious police were the ones on horseback.  There were at least eight of them that I saw throughout the day.


This horse has a PBR horseshoe.

The police moved up and down the street, keeping a watch on things.  I saw them stop one girl who had an open container that she thought was closed because the wine bottle had a cork in it. They checked her ID, made her dump it out and dispose of the glass bottle, as glass containers are forbidden. The next guy the stopped was on the sidewalk with a can of beer. He “didn’t have” his ID on him, admitted he was underage and got a citation or summons.

As things got crazier, the girls at 19A Palmer maintained order in the front yard. Anyone too close to the sidewalk was told to scoot back. Too much wild behavior would capture the attention of the cops. Early in the day, the cops would warn homeowners if their “guests” were getting out of control. You wanted to party, but not attract too much attention.

At some point around 1pm, the police made their move. They selected a house that was beginning to get out of control.  The eight horsemen of the partypocalypse brought their horses and lined up in front of the selected house. The police on foot would then find the hosts and tell them that they were in violation of the Nuisance Parties code and that they needed to make everyone leave.  At that point, the residents turned off the music and kicked everyone out of the house and yard, front and back.  It is a crazy sight to see three houses in a row, with the yards filled with people on either side of an empty yard.  Two police are left in the front yard to hold the line and ensure a party doesn’t spontaneously combust.  Then the police continue to roam up and down the street,  waiting for the next party to get too crazy. You can probably see what happens here: when the guests of one house party get shut down, they go to another house and that party begins to overflow, thus attracting the attention of the cops. The police did something counter-intuitive which seemed to work: they didn’t start at one end of the street and work their way down, forcing people into a cluster and creating a wall of drunk people. They picked apart the mass, house by house, dividing and conquering the crowd without creating a mass of people in one area. As a student, I would have been pissed about this, but as an adult, I thought it was genius.

19 Palmer made it until about 2:40 pm and by 4:00 pm, Palmerfest was shut down. Parties that were shut down too early secreted their kegs to other streets to continue the party.  Our group went to Palmer Place, an apartment complex across the street from 19 Palmer, and continued there.

DIFFERENCES:
Obviously the size difference is massive. We didn't have social media or anyone sponsoring parties or DJs. The police presence was big and residents were never expected to take responsibility for their guests. The party getting shut down by 4:00pm was a disappointment because we all know that guys like me have a much better chance of hooking up under the cover of darkness.

STILL THE SAME:
Drinking games, though we had beer bongs, they have flip cup and beer pong; there was still beer shot gunning. People still have dogs.  Doors to houses were open and no one was dumb enough to shut the water off to their bathroom. People were nice. People were fun. People were drunk. People let me tell my stories.

CHART OF COMPARISONS:


SUMMARY:
Palmerfest has grown to be an event that seems to have perpetual motion. While there have been riot like bumps in the road, the street party continues to lumber forward. For it's own good, local authorities seem to have contained the insanity without sanctioning the event and turning it into a street carnival and sucking the life out of it. The Palmerfest originators could never predicted where the party is today and many of the people today were unaware of its meager beginnings. Overall, the original reason for Palmerfest was to throw a large, kickass party.



  

 OTHER PHOTOS
From top left clockwise: wiffle ball, the old garage from 19 Palmer, Steve on the back roof of 19 Palmer, the old narrow kitchen of 19 Palmer 


I stowed my cup in the bushes, a 1991 party tactic

These sisters saw me taking photos and just asked if I would take their photo too.

Palmer Street 2017 around 11:30am

The back of 19 Palmer around noon

Steve and Sydney

This seems to be a permanent sign on Palmer Street

Not the topless partygoer I wanted to see

Palmer Place around 2:00pm as people were being kicked out of Palmer Street












"I Love Me. Who Do You Love?" available on Amazon

Thanks to a number of friends and fans, I was able to publish a collection of stories and posts from HolyJuan.com.  That book is now available on Amazon (I Love Me. Who Do You Love?)

If you go to the link, you can preview a bit of it with the "Look Inside" feature.  You will note that there are full sentences and some instances of proper grammar.  It is available in hard copy and for Kindle.

Thanks to those of you that contributed and you other fucking slackers who have been enjoying HolyJuan for FREE over the past 11 years need to pony up and buy a stinking copy.  If you are completely down on your luck, I do have a number of .mobi copies that I can give away for free. Email me at holyjuan@gmail.com if you would like a copy for your device.


Blackheart Dinosaur - Unpopular Rock

My buddy's band enter in the RPM challenge to make a record in a month or less.  I'm not sure how well the player is going to appear on this site, but you can use the link below to get there.

blackheartdino's player:


http://rpmchallenge.com/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userprofile&user=63171&Itemid=296


Update Your Laminated List Day

I think everyone is aware that February 25th is the Annual Update Your Laminated List Day.

As you all know, a Laminated List is the three famous people with whom your spouse/significant other will allow you to have sex with if ever the opportunity presents itself. If you happen to run into one of your three famous people and they are drunk enough to let you jump in the sack / couch / Uber with you, then you have permission to have guilt free sex with any one of the three people on that list.

My list has only changed slightly with the removal of Kat Dennings (I’m starting to think I can trick Miss Sally into putting Kat on her list) and the addition of Cara Delevingne.

1. Christina Ricci (Still number one after all these years)
2. Milana Vayntrub (She’s the AT&T girl and my crushy crush)
3. Cara Delevingne (I don’t know what it is… but she makes my heart hurt)

Let’s hear what your three picks are!







Funded!

My KickStarter was funded!  Thank you to everyone who donated and still might want to donate.  I'm getting some numbers together to see about creating an audio book.  Yes, an audio book.

There is still time to donate and get in on some of the awesome rewards!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/296271333/i-love-me-who-do-you-love-my-life-as-holyjuan


KickStarter for a HolyJuan book

Hello friends of HolyJuan.com;

I have created a KickStarter to fund publishing my first book.  Please take a look at the link below and help me to get this off the ground.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/296271333/i-love-me-who-do-you-love-my-life-as-holyjuan

Thanks to all of you who have stuck around all these years.  I did this for me, but really is was for you. (It was really just for me.)

Strange Disappearances

My loyal readers may note that some of my articles are going to missing links.  I hate to say that I ran afoul of some bad hombres and they kidnapped some of my best articles and are holding them digitally hostage for ransom.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience and hope to be able to get those articles back out in public as soon as possible.  There are still plenty of other horribly written items to read.

How to answer a child’s questions about death

Right after sex and the alt-right movement, death is one of the most difficult matters to explain to a child. Here are some questions you may get and some sample answers in reference to a dead Uncle Bob. Remember, the answers you give may be different, so do not read these word for word to the child unless your dead person is also Uncle Bob.

1. Where’s Uncle Bob?
Uncle Bob is dead.

2. What is dead?
Dead is when you stop breathing.

3. I can hold my breath.
That is not a question, but I’ll answer it anyways. If you were to hold your breath for a long time you would die. Just like Uncle Bob.

4. Is Uncle Bob being punished by God?
No. Uncle Bob did not believe in God. Too bad for Bob, because God believed in him. So now Bob is in hell with the devil and eternal fires.

5. Why is Bob in that box?
Bob is in that plain box because he could not afford the metal one with the stainless steel. Bob was a bad planner and spent his money on booze and women. Daddy wishes he could have the plain box.

6. No, why is he in that box and not moving?

He’s dead. I thought we covered that in #1.

7. No, why is he out so we can see him?
Uncle Bob is being displayed so that people can say their last good-byes. In a little while, they will shut the box and bury the box in the ground.

8. Why do we put people in the ground?
Dead people can come back as zombies and it is best to lock them up and stick them as far as possible under the earth. Remember, only a head shot can take out a zombie.  Don’t try to light them on fire. You can also hit them with a guitar.

9. Mom said Uncle Bob was going to be cremated.
Oh shit. You are right. He’ll get stuffed in the flames, crackle, crackle, crackle, then they give us a handful of ashes, which we can pretend are his.

10. Was that last line a complete rip off from the Monty Python “Undertaker” sketch?
Yes. Your Uncle Bob loved Python. And scotch.

11. What are all these rocks with the writing on them?
Those are called tombstones. They are overpriced chunks of marble so that we can remember that we outlived Uncle Bob. You’ll note that Uncle Bob’s tombstone looks like everyone else’s and we are bound to spend countless hours searching around for it so that your mother can swap out the flowers.

12. Why is everyone crying?
Uncle Bob owed a lot of people a lot of money. This funeral ain’t cheap either.

13. You didn’t like Uncle Bob, did you?
It’s not polite to say bad things about the dead.

14. Will I die?
Someday, yes. But not for a long time. You’ll spend years of your life, trudging and plodding and scraping by. You’ll get married and have kids and retire. Then one day you'll ask yourself "why?" Then you'll impatiently wait for death to come to your doorstep.

15. Which is harder to explain: death, sex or neoconservatism?
Sex, then neoconservatism and then death. In that order.

16. Why do people have to die?
People have to die so that the cigarette companies can make more money. At least that's what I read somewhere.

17. Did Bonkers die?
No, Bonkers ran away. And let's stick with the Uncle Bob theme.

18. What if Uncle Bob wakes up and he is under ground?
Good question. Uncle Bob is really, really dead. But just in case, all bodies are buried with a cell phone and five free minutes. I hope this cemetery isn't outside of our calling area.

19. Are you going to try to stretch this out to an even twenty questions?
No.