How right you were, dear paul,
That we hear of famous people's deaths while on vacation.
Perhaps it's so their funerals are not too crowded,
With their loyal fans being out of town and all.
Those celebrities are pretty clever.
I've heard that someone's born every eight seconds,
So I presume that someone dies every eight seconds
Just to keep things even.
It makes me feel shortchanged
When I read the obituary page:
Someone's holding back information.
It also prompts me to flip through the telephone
Directory on sleepless nights,
Saying over, and over, and over again:
"Yup! you're all going! every last one of you."
Wow. heaven must be a big place.
I don't know too many dead people,
But folks tell me I'm young.
When my grandfather died, he was laid out
In the bub funeral home,
And I was secretly glad mr. bub didn't change his name
To something more romantic
When he went into business.
I just wish it was less memorable.
My high school locker partner,
Ned, worked part-time for a mortician.
Imagine dressing dead people,
Straightening their ties and fluffing up their hair
So you can afford to take a girl out
To the movies on saturday night.
Well, that's love! that's adolescent desperation!
I would've been honored to have ned
Take me to the movies and let him buy me popcorn.
Instead, I went out with a boy who died.
The hardest part was knowing that his body
Didn't just disappear on the bed the moment he left.
I think that's what keeps me off of suicide:
The idea that there's something left
For someone else to clean up. how rude and inconsiderate!
It's a pain to take out the weekly trash,
Let alone figure out what to do
With over a hundred pounds of flesh that's about to go bad.
It'd be even worse in india, where there's a religious cult
Which believes you shouldn't desecrate
Any of the elements with the dead.
They can't be buried or burned.
They can't be cast out to sea.
So they're taken to the top of the tower of silence,
Where they become the vultures' problem.
How's that for passing the buck?
No, when I go, I want to go clean, convenient,
Leaving no mess.
As if I vaporized while taking a shower,
As if I moved to antarctica, leaving no forwarding address.