Three Funerals and an Intervention
by Shirley Ujest
Attending the funeral of a sibling is usually not the place for one to be inspired to invent some thing. You have to take these things as they happen and run with it. Inspiration can happen anywhere, at any time. Do not question the why’s of life, I say.
But, when you wake up on that dreary morning to do a dreary deed that you had done before for two other deceased brothers and you are faced with a sinus migraine coming on strong, all you want to do is crawl back under the covers and will yourself into a nice week long coma. Certainly, you think to yourself, your body fat alone would keep you alive that long.
Now was not the time for a pity party. Rising, I took the first sinus medication that I could find, went down to have the first of what would be two cups of coffee and a light breakfast. Stuff myself into my panty hose and Funeral Attire ™ before realizing that the waist band of said hose is shot and will not stay up for five minutes, let alone an entire day of glad handing friends and family. I did not need the distraction of Panty Hose Failure.
On route to the church with my husband, we make a quick stop for hose and a stronger over the counter sinus medication, as the one I took was offering no relief. By the time we arrived at the church, the two medicines with psuedoephedrine in them both were propelled to ever nerve ending in my body by the caffeine I had taken earlier. Not being a nervous person by nature, and remember, this was not the first siblings funeral I had attended and the death was very much anticipated and quite a relief for my mother and I to see my brother out of his misery, I knew that I was in for a jittery packed morning.
I just didn’t realize that sitting stock still in such a somber setting listening to dreary dull slow moving music while your brain races around from wild thought to wild thought at the speed of light times ten, that I was in for a veeeerry…..looooong…….ser…vice.
To give a visual of what it was like for me. You know Foghorn Leghorn and that weasel that is always trying to eat him? The Monsigneur was Foghorn, I was the weasel. Kook kook atchoo.
It doesn’t help that I hold the church that I was raised in to be something of a Theater d' Absurd. There is no offense meant to my family nor true believers. It’s me. It’s always been me. I just don’t get it and I am fine with that and where I am in life (overweight and broke, but at least I can sleep in on Sundays.) My eyes have always glazed over during church and religion classes, and I had the inadequate grades to show for it.
I view all religions pretty much like the press views former VP Dan Quayle. You just sit there expectantly, waiting for the gaff and then I snicker to myself (sometimes my husband) like a mischeivious schoolgirl. It’s dark. It’s probably sinful. ( If it’s fun, according the Catholicism, it’s sinful.) It’s how I have always been. I’m defective, what else can I say?
It was the standard run o’ the mill funeral. Standard dreary slow music. Standard ‘Lazarus Rising From the Dead’ readings. Standard reference to Lazarus homily. Standard Catholic hoo-haa. I had forgotten, after years of avoidance, just how coma-inducing it all is. It's like watching CSPAN and the paint drying.
I learned that in everything that we must endure there is a life lesson to be learned: The funeral is not for the deceased, it is for living. There is comfort in the ritual. And for me I took immense comfort in the fact that I could still zone out during the entire clambake and have happy little day dreams. In fact, showing how adult I was, I would come back into the ordeal to see if anything new was being said (Yeah, right) and well…being of my mind, I ended up entertaining the thought that ( keep in mind the Lazarus theme) : Jesus was a time traveling doctor who was able to raise the guy from the dead because he was actually in a diabetic coma and just needed a tic tac. This thought kept me entertained quite merrily for some time.
Then, naturally, to show how the inner cogs of my brain squeak, I noticed how the Shrine looks wonderful now as it is a National Historic Church and has gotten boatloads of mula for renovations. The water spots that I use to count during my youth during the unmercifully long filibuster masses are now gone from the ceiling. See, I wasn’t paying attention then, why should I now?
If I wasn’t counting waterspots or staring at the marble statues of the martyred saints that had arrows through their torso (St. Sebastian.), I was noticing people’s shoes. Before I took my first communion and was trapped in my pew watching everyone else get to have fun, (Oy! What fun!) I would watch the communion partakers walk by. There wasn’t much else to do, so I watched their shoes as my eyes are suppose to be downcast in comtempletive prayer. At one time it got to the point that I could identify a person just by the shoes they were wearing.
Oh, there are the suede blue shoes. That’s Alice.
There are the ratty tennis shoes of Bobby.
Missy has on her saddle shoes again, I see.
Oh, boy! There are the nun shoes. I hope Sister Ann Mageret doesn’t catch me goofing off. Pray as you have never prayed before.
People tend to wear the same shoes to church week after week, year after year. But, I digress. This isn’t about how my shoe fetish started, it is about how I came up with a million dollar idea sitting at my brother’s funeral.
So, naturally, gazing discreetly around the freshly spruced up National Shrine and how nice everything looks, my thoughts naturally turn to money: How I could make more of it. Whom I could market it too and the assorted pesky details. But I had to have a great idea that involved little effort on my part ( I am not lazy, I am in Research and Development.) and, since women just get it stuck to them in life with the whims of the fashion market and the entire tampon and makeup industry, I decided I would focus on screwing the male in a non biblical manner. I have nothing against guys, per se, but frankly, I won’t quibble with my brain once an idea sets in as it never listens to me anyway.
In order to do this (make oodles of money), I knew it had to be fun. Fun is good. And since our country is on a patriotic fervor right now, make it Three Cheers For The Red, White And Blue, by gum, thus cashing in on a craze and selling out in one felled swoop. I have no pride. My jacked-up brain was humming along at warp factor 27, I knew I was onto something, sitting there, holding my mother’s hand as the Monsigneur droned eloquently on.
So, I start to think about what men like. And every time I cleared my thoughts of the perverseness that it wandered too, it automatically came back to the same question. What do men like to play with the most?
Yep.
Since society frowns about the first thing they like to do with their thang, they readily and most happily accept the second most favorite thing for their thang.
Oh, I am so going to hell for thinking about that while sitting in such a holy place giving my departed brother the big send off. Then I relaxed, realizing it was ok. God has a sense of humor. He wouldn't make this world such a comical place for just his amusement, would he?
Every American Male is a Real Man. Ready to Defend His Country at a moment’s notice provided it doesn’t interrupt the Ball Game and that the enemy is fearful of the TV Remote and flatulence. Yessirree, that will keep them Taliban dogs out of our country.
“Don’t look now, Achmed, but there is a Farting Brigade marching towards us and their remotes are set to ‘Mute’.
“I just hope they don’t have a match!”
Being the crafty American that I am, I wanted to capitalize on these two themes: Peeing and Patriotism. What can be more American than public urination? There was an entire episode of Seinfield devoted to this very subject. If it is in pop culture then it is ok by me.
So, in my desperate attempt to raise my family tax bracket from Nearly Poor to Insufferable WASP, without compromising my Midwestern Practicality and laz..Research and Developement Nature, I came upon a zen like moment of utter and complete perfection: Urinal cakes with Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein’s likenesses on them.
I know you are sitting there, shaking your head muttering, ‘Haven’t we reached our Urinal Cake Saturation Point already?”
Let me ask you this: Can you ever get too much of a good thing?
No.
Selling points that really need no introduction:
Self Love. Men like their thang. Before their wife and kids, their Mr. Happy is the first to go with them out of a burning house. It’s a proven fact.
Sharp Shooter. Men take pride in urinating, yet have aiming difficulties 10 out of 10 times. Their Thang is the equivalent to a fire hose at full pressure, I imagine. Women, on the other hand, envision it more as a squirt gun.
Health. Shooting the eye out of OBL and Saddam with re-filtered beer is not only entertaining, it’s keeping a puddle off the floor.
Olfactory. Deordorizing the bathroom. Nothing short of a Nuclear Toilet Duck will make any public men’s restroom minty fresh, but this will allow the men to help perfume the air with something other than refried beans.
Amusement. It’s just plain fun.
Pride. Fighting the Taliban with their Tallywackers. How manly can you get? Throw in a Truck Pull and you got yourself a Testosterone Festival.
Now, comes the hard part.
The product name.
I want it to be as identifiable as Kleenex and Chapstick. PisSoap and Piss Pucks are too crass. Piddle Dee Dee to juvenile. Then it hit me, in another zenlike moment during my brother’s funeral, somewhere between a dreary tune and the Act of Contrition the perfect name to market my perfect money making product.
Uri-Patriot™
As I sat back in the wooden church pew that is a modern day hair shirt for the backside, I realized with a satisfied inner smile, that I achieved an idea that I was able to carry through from start to finish in my head, including marketing:
Don’t shoot your eye out, shoot Osama and Saddam’s Eye Out! It’s the latest craze available down at the Chat ‘n’ Chew Saloon! Uri-Patriot! Offer only available in finer men’s rest rooms. Ladies, don’t feel excluded, you are welcome to watch or take your own shot.
I savored the contentment of a well done job as the organ droned on the slowest rendition of Oh Danny Boy that I’d ever heard.
You can tell my mother I was lollygagging in church. She knows me well enough to know that I’ve never functioned in the same stratosphere as other mortals. If I actually did pay attention, she'd worry over what was wrong with me. She wants me to be a Good Catholic. Not some Religous Nutjob ™.
Just don’t tell her that I thought of the idea of putting dictator’s face on a urinal cake. That would be unladylike. I was raised to be dignified, keep my mouth shut, take care of my husband and learn to cook sixty pounds of mash potatoes for company ( none of which I have ever mastered or even tried, feh. ) She probably doesn't even know what a urinal cake is, but I digress. I’d probably get grounded, or worse, get the lecture of “ Ooooh, and just what are you going to invent while at my funeral, missy?”
I dunno, Ma, but I hope it’s not for a long time.
Posted 5/8/03