“How can I help you?”
“We, me and my wife stopped by here ‘because we saw your sign and wanted to know more about the sale.”
“And which sale is this?” asked the arrogant funeral director as he sat down behind his overly large and ostentatious mahogany desk and exaggeratedly crossed one leg over the other and brought the fingertips of both hands together, where they began to beat time to some imaginary tune.
“The one you have stuck in the grass outside the cemetery on, I think all three sides.”
“Four sides,” smiled the funeral director who didn’t want to be there, but his tee time was at 12 and it was only 9.30.
“No sir,” replied the man, “three sides because the fourth side has houses on it.”
The funeral director uncrossed his legs and leant forward. His fingertips still beating time to an unknown military tune. He felt he had met his match. He pondered for a minute trying to think of a way to deal with the current situation. Ordinarily, Mr Carmichael would’ve been delighted to show the couple around and tell them all about the special they were running, but in this case, he had a serious objection. He took in a deep breath and then smiled evilly at the couple. “I’m sorry,” he finally said slowly, “I didn’t get your names.”
“Jake and Jane Connor.”
“Jake and Jane Connor,” he repeated under his breath, but loud enough for the couple sitting in front of him to hear.
“Why is there an issue with our names?”
“Oh no, no, no,” he replied sitting back in his chair and pushing against the back so it rocked. If there was a subtle message he was trying to impart to Mr and Mrs Jake Connor, they unfortunately didn’t get it. He needed to try a different tact. He smiled again. They rather he didn’t because it gave Mrs Connor the shivers. She smiled back at him. “Well,” he continued and then paused for a second. “Well,” he began again his brain working overtime, “are you talking about the buy one get the second burial plot at half price?”
“Is there another?” asked Jake.
“No there isn’t, but that one expired a couple of hours ago and the new one is the same, but only for veterans.”
“I’m a veteran,” snapped Jake to the funeral director’s disbelief.
“You are?” he asked in shock, thinking this isn’t working well.
“Yes I was in the army for 20 years.”
“Sergeant?” he asked slightly condescendingly, his objection already lined up because if he was enlisted then it was only valid for officers.
“No,” replied Jake using all his power to control his temper. Jane knew her husband well and knew that unless she took over, things might not work for the funeral director. He might be making use of one of his burial plots before he wanted to.
“No, Mr Carmichael,” Jane said out loudly, loudly enough for Mr Carmichael’s assistant in the outer office to hear her. “My husband retired as a Colonel.”
Mr Carmichael sank back into his chair and wished it would open up and dump him on the first tee at his country club, but no such luck.
“And don’t say thank you for your service,” interjected Jake, but Mr Carmichael assured him he wasn’t going to do that.
“What regiment?” he asked.
“Cavalry!” replied Jake.
“Cavalry,” repeated Mr Carmichael and Jake knew what he was thinking.
“No, we don’t use horses anymore. Tanks.” And then he stretched out his arms, “big, big, tanks. One that could put a huge hole in the wall of your office.”
Mr Carmichael’s assistant was listening to the conversation and feared that his boss was in imminent danger of meeting his maker sometime very soon. He needed to interject himself into this mess his boss had got himself into. He got up from his chair, knocked on the office door and without being asked, walked in, and sat on the other side of the desk near his boss. Jake and Jane Connor thought all this was very odd. But now neither of them wanted to leave until they had their burial plots. The assistant who introduced himself as, “Sky Luke, Mr Sky Luke,” he repeated cleared his throat. “Please forgive my boss,” he said to the astonishment of his boss, “he has been up late many nights. He just got over covid, so he’s not thinking straight, so please allow me to help out.”
Jake was the first one to fire back. “I’m sorry. I’m usually a very calm man, you have to be when you command a tank, but what’s going on here is beyond the pale. My wife and I were driving by your burial plots.”
“Cemetery,” corrected Mr Luke, but slunk further into his chair when he saw the glare he received from Jake.
“We were driving by and saw the sign that said buy one burial plot at full price and get the second at half off, so we decided to stop and get more information. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” asked Mr Carmichael and then he turned to Mr Luke and said, “you can go now and while you’re at it, get us all some coffee please.” Mr Luke got up from his chair and crawled back into his office. “Sorry about him. He just recovered from covid and none of us know what’s going on in his head.”
It was obvious that Jake and Jane weren’t interested and had yet to receive the information they had come for. Mr Carmichael decided to try a different approach. “How tall are you sir?”
“What has that got to with getting the information we came in for?”
“Everything,” reassured Mr Carmichael.
“Six foot eleven,” replied Jake.
“And your wife?”
“Four foot eleven.”
“Ah there you go, we can’t accommodate you.”
“Why is that?” asked Jane furious at the assumption that there was something wrong with them.
“Well,” continued Mr Carmichael, “the parties have to be of normal height.”
“Where does it say that? It’s not on the board.”
“True, very true, but it’s on the brochure here,” and with that, he reached into his drawer and came out with a brochure opened it up and pointed to the pertinent sentence.
“It just says normal height, correct?”
“But you have to admit that six foot eleven is hardly normal!”
“It is in my family,” replied Jake feeling insulted “in fact, I’m the shortest.” Yes, his assistant was right, this was not going to end well for the funeral director. “Ok,” continued Jake, “if you take my height and add my wife’s and then divide by two, that’s six foot each. Now what would you do if we both came in here and said we’re six foot, we want to buy one and get one at a half price, what would you say?”
“Oh that’s easy,” replied Mr Carmichael smiling genuinely. “I would say, sign here.”
“Ok let’s sign here then.”
“But, but, but,” replied a worn out funeral director. “That’s not reality.”
“Yes it is.”
“Well in order to go through with this, we would have to cut off eleven inches from your legs and bury them in your wife’s burial plot.”
Jake thought for a second, “what happens if my wife dies first?”
The pain on the funeral director’s face was plain to see. He knew this wasn’t going to end well. “In that case,” he replied slowly, his mind trying to figure out a way for him to run from his office, “well in that case.”
It was at this point Mr Sky Luke made another appearance and added, “we sell crutches?”

Love You to Death

June 21, 2023

Love you to death, a phrase Jared had heard all his life, but never quite understood.
Having smiled at the waitress who had come over to refill his mug with a sorry excuse for coffee, he looked around the table at his friends. They were all now living the best lives they could’ve ever dreamed of. Everyone of them having finished at the top of their professions whether that was in the armed services, two being generals, while the others had been in business or the medical field.
Jared looked at his breakfast which lay on his plate getting cold, as he wondered whether he should really be eating something so unhealthy. For the past five years, this little motley group of men and sometimes their wives would join them if they didn’t have anything better to do, met on Friday mornings to go over what had or had not happened in both their tiny world and the greater world out there. Though most times that was far too depressing to contemplate. The tiny little island where they lived in large palatial homes, in some cases to the regret of their heirs who felt they were spending their inheritances, was eight miles long and less than half a mile wide and was more interesting. For instance, Dennis, not a member of the group, who lived at the other end of the eight mile long island, had caught a shark on the end of his fishing line and then wisely let the fish dive back into the ocean, taking his fishing rod with it instead of trying to land the giant man eating monstrosity. That happened a few months ago, but it still remained an item of much humour and discussion especially amongst those who sat around the table at the coffee shop, which prided itself as having the best breakfast on the island. Being that it was the only pseudo restaurant on the island, no one could argue with their assertion.
Jared wasn’t hungry on this particular Friday morning as he and his wife Rachel had had a large dinner the night before. It was something Rachel had seen on the internet, which they had originally tasted in Italy by far their favourite country, which she attempted to recreate. Actually, she did a very good job. Thus, instead as they most often did, leave some in the fridge for dinner the following night though sometimes it ended up if the portions were small enough as a lunch, in this case it was all gone. Jared now looked at his fried eggs swimming in grease and he couldn’t help but notice that the longer they remained on the plate the amount of grease seemed to increase. It was obvious the other not so wholesome food around those eggs had been convinced to surrender their grease, and as it had begun to solidify even in that semi tropical climate, to Jared eating it would mean losing the memory of last night’s dinner. So instead he poked at them occasional to see if the yolks would run or just walk away from the rest of the items on his plate was sufficient.
The others however didn’t have any compunction and ate heartily. “Not eating your breakfast this morning?” asked one of the two generals, the younger one though by not much. Jared didn’t answer and instead pushed his plate towards him. That was an invitation for the rest to finish Jared’s breakfast. In matter of a couple of minutes, his plate was clean. As he pulled back it back in front of him, he remarked that Dennis should join them instead of trying to catch a shark because he would have more fun. When Heather returned to the table to see if there more takers for her pathetic excuse for coffee, she remarked about Jared’s clean plate and injected her take on the Dennis saga. She believed it was Jared who had wiped his plate clean. Jared, not one to destroy anyone’s feelings, agreed that the breakfast that morning was the best in years. A compliment which was transmitted at lightening speed to her husband the chef, or at least that’s what he called himself. The diners didn’t want to destroy his illusion so went along with it.
Jared leant back in his chair. “Question,” he said after a few seconds. “What does love you to death mean?”
“Oh, that’s an easy one,” at least the other general the older one thought so. “It’s obvious, Jared. I thought even you a man who has been married for 50 years knows what that is.”
Jared looked at the general in amusement, as he was a bachelor and waited for an answer. None was forth coming.
Jared’s friend John thought it was time for him to enlighten the audience and add his take. “Love you to death means I’ll love you until I die.”
“Then why not say that?” shot back Jared a little feisty as he was getting hungry and found he couldn’t bring himself to ask for something to eat. John contemplated Jared’s reply and not really having a suitable answer sat back in his chair. There were other suggestions, but the one that made the most sense came form the dimmest of them Ian, who always fancied himself somewhat of a ladies’ man, though no one was sure what lady, replied. “I’ll squeeze you to death, that’s what that means.”
Of course, the others didn’t believe that as it was the antithesis of love.
“After all,” Jared offered once the others had gone silent, “after all gentleman, whoever made up that phrase didn’t know how he…..”
“Or she,” interjected Ian not one to fade into the woodwork,
“Or she,” nodded Jared as he continued, “knew what they were talking about. It would’ve been much better to have said I will love you forever, than to say something meaningless like love you to death.”
“You know you can smother someone with too much love.” it was that turn of the most boring of the group Stanley, who had been a banker and looked the part in both dress and demeanour. He was once asked if he owned a pair of shorts, to which his answer was to cut the legs of one his most expensive trousers.
“So, what you think love you to death means? Come here the love of my life, I’m going to hold you so close to me with my powerful arms that when I finally let go, you’ll simply slide on to the floor because I squeezed all the life out of you. You mean something like that?”
“I guess so,” replied Stanley not sure if that’s what he really meant.
“Why can’t people, when they say something just say it clearly so there’s no need for interpretation?”
Everyone agreed. That is everyone except Ian who always had to have the last word. “Anyone read Shakespeare?”
A look of, ‘oh my goodness Ian you actually outdid yourself with that question spread over the others faces.’
“Who’s turn is it to pay?” asked Jared getting up and stretching his arms above his head.
“Mineth,” replied the younger of the two generals.
“I agreeth,” replied the rest without Ian and then burst out in laughter as they had all thought of the same word at the same time.