Dear Aunty Jean,
I am absolutely furious! My husband Freddie and I have recently decided to plan ahead for our funerals and while I have gone down the traditional route he has made a mockery of the whole thing.
He has insisted upon sending his plans to the funeral company and he has given strict instructions that they cannot be changed.
There’s not going to be any respectful funeral directors following his coffin in, no, he will be accompanied into church by half a dozen dancing-girls and a saxophonist.
I hardly know which is worst out of the two.
And his coffin? He is having it sprayed silver with the words ‘Sod this for a game of soldiers, I’m off’ emblazoned on the lid in black paint.
His musical choice is ‘I’m going underground’ by a group called the Jam. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them? I hadn’t, I’m of a more classical persuasion.
And I am absolutely disgusted with the vicar! He has agreed to perform the ceremony entirely in ‘Rap’. It turns out that he is a big fan of the rapper ‘DJ Slappety’, who had a huge hit, so I am told, with the song ‘Is you pointing them bananas at me?’
The wake is going to be simply hideous, he is having Jerk Chicken (What the hell is that?) and ‘hash cakes’ served. Whatever the they are!
He is adamant that this is what he wants. I will be utterly humiliated.
How can I get through to him that this isn’t acceptable?
Yours, going with an oak veneer, Harriet, Dunstable
Aunty Jean says:
Dear veneered Dunstable,
You have my sympathies. All women look forward to their husbands dying before them, but your husband is clearly intent on taking all the pleasure out of it for you.
He’s being incredibly selfish. What’s wrong with a traditional funeral? I was at one only last week and it was perfectly wonderful. As I said to the deceased’s wife, when looking at the floral tributes, ‘Aren’t the flowers adequate?’
Yes it was very tasteful.
You could play him at his own game perhaps? Threaten to have something embarrassing about your husband written on your coffin lid, on the off-chance that you go first. I don’t know, maybe ‘My husband only changes his underpants once a week’ or ‘my husband is an embezzler’. The options here are endless really.
It might make him think twice about the nonsense that he’s got planned for his final journey.
You could of course just not tell anybody when he dies. Being the only attendee on the big day will certainly pay him back. And think of it, you’ll be able to eat all of those delicious hash cakes to yourself.
I’ve asked my devoted secretary Miss Tiffany what they are and she thinks they’re a variation on a Victoria Sponge. Yum yum!
In the following weeks you can always drop it out to people that he has died.
‘Yes, I’d love to come to dinner! It will just be me though with Freddie being dead………………..oh, didn’t I mention it?’ etc
Some of his family may get a bit sniffy about it I suppose, but hey ho!
Hope that helps! Aunty Jean
Remember! Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, when rigamortis sets in, a coffins a must!
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