Michael D. Davis.

I probably think about death too much. Not in a bad way or anything, just your daily musings. My sister said I probably don’t think about it any more than anyone else, then I reminded her I wrote a book all about the different possible ways my family might die. But really who can tell with these things?

I already have my burial plot. In fact, everyone in my family already has their own plot. My Father bought them years ago. The man will eat the heel ends left in the bread bag without thinking of opening a new loaf, but somehow we already have our burial plots. It’s one of those things I guess.

I also have my funeral paid off already. When I got out of high school and others were paying to go to college I was sacking money away for the inevitable. Those double-wide coffins don’t pay for themselves, I’ll have you know.

The thing is, yes, I have my burial plot, and my funeral is paid off, but that’s not what I think about. It’s things like should I put it in my will that my survivors have to hire a clown for my funeral? Or should I stipulate that an actress should be hired who would walk in, slap the face of my corpse, and say, “That’s for Peru and the donkey you killed,” before storming out?

Also, I don’t even know if I want to be buried. There are so many ways to get rid of a dead body anymore, it’s fantastic. There is a pod that will turn you into a tree. There is a body bag that will turn you into mushrooms. You could donate your body to this science center called the body farm. There they throw you out in a field and watch you decompose. That’s pretty cool.

For the longest time, I wanted to be put in a crypt undisturbed. My thought was if there was a screw-up and I was just taking a nap, I could just walk out. But I don’t have crypt money. So, then I thought of burial, but with a customized coffin. Get me one of those bells on a string or something.

My current thoughts are on cremation. However, I have questions. Firstly, I wondered if they could cremate different parts of your body at different times. I mean like chop off my head, cremate my body, put it in an urn, then cremate my head, and put that in a different urn. That way this jar would be on a shelf and if someone asks people could say, “Oh, that’s just Mike’s head.”

My Ma is almost as indecisive as me on this topic. Years ago she said she wanted to be cremated, that hasn’t changed — the urn has though. At first, it was her big refillable Casey’s cup. Then she wanted her ashes to be put in a big pickle jar. Not to be confused with the regular pickle jars, because she didn’t know how many jars that would take. I don’t know what she wants her urn to be today.

The music that would be played at her funeral is another big topic for Ma. More than a dozen times a song would come on the radio that she likes and she’d say, “This is a good one, you can play it at my funeral.” I guess that’s the true mark of a good song.

Both me and Ma end our conversations the same way. Whether we are talking about funeral music, urns, mushroom bags, or saying how we are gonna go out, we end it by saying something like, “I don’t see what this matters anyway, no one will show up to my funeral. You wait and see, I’ll be the only one there.”