Best Funeral I Ever Attended

First of all, I must start this out by saying that the weather was spectacular! And you are probably wondering what the fuck does the weather have to do with a funeral ceremony? Well, besides the obvious fact that funerals typically conclude with a burial, this funeral ceremony was oddly held outdoors from the start. There is an interesting story behind that alone and I know I can't just say "the funeral was outside" and leave it there, so here goes.

So, my Uncle Jon, who is now disgustingly dead, made it brutally apparent a number of times in his will that he wants to have his funeral held in the Seminole Mall located in Seminole, Florida. He set money aside to literally rent the place out on a Sunday evening after they closed. The reason for this abomination is because he first met his wife in the mall. She was fleeing a store because she set off the metal detectors. I think we can piece together why she set them off. He drops his car keys, she is looking behind her as she is running with a pair of bras that didn’t end up fitting her anyway, and she & my uncle collided. Thankfully neither party was injured. Security did however catch up with her and she was arrested. You may wonder how she knew the bras wouldn’t fit her. Turns out, strangely, that police booked the bras as evidence and somehow the bras ended up in her belongings bag at the jail. At least that's the story I was told.

Anyway, as she was getting handcuffed and yelling belligerently at Uncle Jon, he actually had the lack of brains to ask her for her number. He claimed she was one of those boring "love at first sight" cliches. Her swarming beehive of insults abruptly stops and she says, “Really? Well, sure you can have my number!” He memorizes her number and the rest is history. Let’s say that they had a dynamic marriage. If only the walls could talk! Soap operas go to their house to be born.

Okay, so we are back to the funeral being held at the mall, but there is just 1 problem: they tore the mall down a month beforehand and my Uncle didn’t change the funeral location in his will. So we end up having the funeral in the middle of a massive concrete slab, standing in what was once the hallway where my Uncle first met his criminal wife. The noise from nearby construction vehicles forces the minister to use a karaoke machine as a microphone, which was a kickass setup by the way. Just so happens that my cousin Tyler had a part-time mobile DJ business and had driven his work van to the funeral that day. Tyler even added the words of the minister's speech to the TV screen. He had some weird Bluetooth linking capability with the Minister's tablet. It was cool. The kids got a kick out of it. What was especially classy was my cousin pretending he couldn't figure out how to mute the soundtrack from the karaoke machine, so the minister's speech was filled with background music from Lady Gaga, Whitney Houston, Bryan Adams, and the DixieChicks.

The sun is shining, it’s in the mid 70s, and the light breeze is swaying what nearby palm trees were left from the mall landscaping. We’re about 15 minutes into the ceremony when suddenly 3 souped-up riceburners came fishtailing around a pile of debris, tearing up the pavement, and start bombing toward the funeral! They must have hooked that corner doing 50. Since the mall was demolished, locals have been using it as an illegal road course. Anyway, they slam on the brakes, 1 car spins out, doing horizontal cartwheels as it flies right behind us and the other 2 cars smash right into each other before reaching the crowd. The funeral stops and some family members rush to the cars to see if everyone's okay. One driver had a cut on his face but the others were fine. My father decides to chew them out for the 5 minutes leading up to the Sheriffs arrival. The 3rd driver managed to take off before they arrived. I remember my Dad shouting, "I got that fucker's plate! I got his fuckin' plate!" So we had to delay the funeral so the police could get some witness statements.

An hour later we finally got back to business. About halfway in, the minister realized he forgot the bread and grape juice, but he tries to continue past that step, but my Aunt Shelly knew right away because she helped with the funeral rehearsal. She actually stands up and cuts the minister off before proceeding to apologize. "I'm very sorry to interrupt but aren't we supposed to have communion?" He gestures her to approach and explains the dilemma. Aunt Shelly replies, "No it's okay, there's a Publix right there and I'll send my son Jerry." I've already been laughing almost uncontrollably since the car crash and this almost put me over the edge. I know my cousin Jerry and this was going to be a real special treat. Aunt Shelly gives Jerry some money and the car keys and he runs to the store.

Jerry promptly returns with the goods. I start laughing out loud as he's fast walking to his Mom. I shout his way, "What'd you get Jerry? JERRY! What'd you bring for us?!" He gives me a silent "fuck you" face and stops before his Mom. She looks into the bag and says, "Okay it's not a typical thing but it'll do just fine. Thank you sweetie." She removes, and I shit you not, a bag of Wonder Bread and a partially-drank bottle of cranberry cocktail juice. No cups. Grandma says, "What the HELL is that, JERRY?! You get saltine cracker bites, not a loaf of bread! When did they last pass around bread slices at church, JERRY?! Goddammit that child is not right, I tell you." My head is buried in my arms and I'm biting my sleeves to keep my laughter to a minimum. My eyes were dripping tears, I was out of breath, and my stomach was cramping like crazy. I glance up to my sister who was next to me covering her face with her hands while her shoulders were doing that up-and-down thing when you laugh. We pass around a bag of bread and the cranberry juice, having to take the ghetto Holy Communion by taking turns. That took no less than a half-hour.

Once that ridiculousness is over, we form a line before Uncle Jon to say our goodbyes. I’m standing behind Grandma, who clearly isn’t all there if you know what I mean. She isn’t necessarily crazy, but during her later years, she is convinced that she must hate everyone. She stands over my Uncle’s body, leans in, and loudly says, “Good riddance you stupid shit head!” Grandma isn't nice to most people. We've heard this stuff from her for years. Just after she says that, she turns around and apparently sees me rolling my eyes with a smile leftover from Cousin Jerry and the street racers. She then proceeds to pull back and slap my glasses off with her gloved hand. Then she says “Don’t make me start with you, you quiet little wise ass, or I'll smack your ass right into World War 3!” She doesn’t have many years left. I pick up my sunglasses and step up to Uncle Jon. After getting the shit knocked out of me, the only thing I could think of to say to my Uncle was, “I don’t know what to say right now Uncle Jon." I take a quick moment to search for my dislocated thoughts. "Sorry about all the bullshit during your funeral. And I'm definitely sorry they tore down the mall last month. Hope you rest in peace, Uncle Jon.”

I then take my seat and glare over to Grandma psychopath, who was giving me a heinous ghastly stare. I swear this happened. She holds up a 20 dollar bill without taking her beady little eyes off me and she tears it in half; ripping it so hatefully fast that it nearly caught fire. Imagine a small old lady with white hair and a light blue dress (because who wears black to a funeral anyway) with a fancy hat doing such a randomly egregious act. She proceeds to give my sister Brandi half of the 20 as Brandi's walking by. As she handed it to me she said, “Just don’t look ungrateful. God knows what she’s thinking right now.” I still don’t know the significance behind that. She was probably flipping me off but her brain told her to rip up currency instead. I really wanted to hold up my hands and make an EDM heart shape at her, but I restrained myself.

Anyway, the rest of the funeral otherwise goes off without a hitch. We finish up in the Seminole Mall parking lot, then we drive to the cemetery where we bury my Uncle. By then it’s like 11 at night. I felt bad for the gravediggers because contrary to the stereotype, they probably don’t like digging graves in the middle of the night. We ended up using headlights to illuminate the burial and we put Uncle Jon into the ground.

Oh yeah I almost forgot how my Uncle died! Okay so he got his pilots license. Beforehand he saved for a decade to buy a little plane. He went to the airstrip by himself to take his plane up for the very first time. The wheels leave the runway and he’s up there for not 30 seconds before he turns the plane and somehow gets it upside down. He then nosedives toward the ground and crashes. The autopsy found traces of GHB in his system. I have no idea why in the hell, and can’t ask if I wanted to.

So, that's it. That was my best funeral ever. Now it's hard to hear the name Jon without laughing hysterically.