YSaC, Vol. X
2008 August 25
Burial Plot – $700
Grandma has had a change of plans and would like to get rid of her Beautiful Scenic view burial plot in Oak Hill Cemetery off of Royal Ave. you can see views of Fern Ridge and is breathtaking! please contact XXX at (xxx)xxx-xxxx or email me at xxxxxxx@hotmail.com Thanx and have a wonderful day 🙂
Grandma’s change of plans apparently involves becoming immortal. Or undead. I guess either way you don’t need a scenic burial plot, though.
I don’t know what to tag this. “Zombie Grandma” comes to mind, but I’m not sure I’m going to find any other posts that would fall into that category. I think I’m going to have to invoke the “wtf?” tag for this one.
do u really need a scenic view if ur dead?
(corey) The scenic view is more for the comfort of the living then the dead. Would you want your family to have to come visit your grave if it was over looking a garbage dump? This can be really important when you are grieving someone important in your life (/corey)
p.s. it’s “you are” not ur
( double corey)I realize AG will probably not see this since it has been almost a year since the original post, but I still felt like replying. (/double corey)
(triple corey) It’s been almost three years since the post, two since the comment 😉
I am bad with numbers
Having considered this issue, I have left it to my survivors to determine if a marker is required for my mortal remains.
One of my suggestions is scenic, and remote, and covered in wildflowers in spring (so pollen can be blamed).
My other is a quirky bit of cemetery which has a playground next to it. Might as well have a way to entertain urchins drug to yet another gr’up evolution.
I’m thinking (hoping) she decided she’d prefer to be cremated? That would really be more like “she changed her mind,” though. “Change of plans” makes it sound like Grandma was all, screw this dying shit. I’ve got better things to do.
It’s more likely that the FAMILY had a change in plans….no need to tell Grandma…she’s dead!
Seller doesn’t mention that Grandpa is buried in the other side of the plot….
and the tombstone has Grandma’s name next to his
Ooh, now I have a burial plot and a headstone, I’m all set!
I think it’s possible that you do need a “zombie Grandma” tag.
My resolution;
Ummm… Can I get back to you?
I need coffee first.
I think my resolution is about 1024×768.
I thought you were fairly large Hammy
what?
Hammy — is that your New Years Resolution? Most people want to go smaller.
Yes, I’m having a reduction…
That’s about the maximum my tablet will support, and at 12.1″ much more just means having to use larger icons and text, rather defeating the purpose,
My serious resolution is to get a job that is not a temp position. I already know I will have my Masters by May so that isn’t really a resolution.
I forgot to add my less serious resolution. I will pretend to understand more Proust.
Meh, Resolve is a carpet cleaner and I have hardwood floors. I guess my resolution will be to sweep them more often.
Aren’t we supposed to be waxing poetic today per Smedley’s suggestion?
I gave up on resolutions. They set me up to fail. I look at the year past, and find 3 things I did that I have never done before. This past year has been very rough. It’s the first time I have been an empty nester, first time I have had to report my boss to someone for improper behavior, and the first time I wasn’t sure if my bills, including rent, could be paid every month. For 2011, I would like to visit Washington State for the first time, enroll in Library Science classes, and get a small business going for my Honey. I’ll check back with you in a year!
I made a Resolution, most of twenty years’ back now, to not make any more New Year’s resolutions.
To date, it is the only NYR that I can demonstrably said to have kept.
Whether I’m the better or worse for it, is a different sort of question. I’ve managed to have resolve, and to heed lessons-learned, and more than once through any given year. Perhaps that limits the speciousness, the hypocritical, for-show, false piety and pie-in-the-sky nature of these things.
Perhaps.
Let’s eat Grandma!
I think we’ve got an eater!
I’ll get the oven on.
Depends on who you’re pointing at–neither of mine were much meaty even before joining the choir invisible (and, for the record, neither pined for fjords).
I started the 1st Journal of the New Year topic in the forum. My contribution is in, I await my brilliant fellow YSACers entries with excitement. Mine was ok, but yours will be incredible.
Braaaaaains with Braaaaaaan
I do not have enough coffee in me, yet.
I keep wanting to take issue with the word plot. But since it would make me sound paranoid and insecure, so I’m leaving it alone …. for now.
My thoughts, Grandma met a rich old guy and got married, and now she doesn’t want to be buried next to the father of her children, she wants to be cremated and scatter in Hawaii. 8) Isn’t love grand?
Or, g’ma went the cougar route and snapped up a rich dumb young’n, who is absolutely never allowed to know g’ma’s exact age (and g’pa would be, pardon the expression, a dead give-away). Ergo, plot must go!
*looks around Snark Lounge, notes the confetti, streamers, empty poppers, singed curtains from fireworks, empty champagne bottles, empty fizzy water bottles, and cake remnants*
It was a Very Good Year!
Year? I barely remember Thursday.
I’d rather not invite comparisons to a year ago, too. Have already re-read my lamentations from then–when I had significantly more quality of life than today, not that it could be seen in the journal.Ignore above, I’m cranky and the weather is making my joints hurt.
Be festive one and all; 2011 will not really start until Monday.
I think Lara and I created entries in the Fora at the same time. Can you, Windrose, with all your internet skillz combine them or should I move my stuff to hers?
I can move them. Do you, Smedley, agree to merge your entry with Lara, and do you, Lara, agree to allow this merger?
Yes, yes I do. And I will agree to cook, except for Saturdays.
That’s Mellow Mushroom Time.
Thank you!
8) I thought I could actually MOVE the comments but I failed. I will plead with the Llama-nun and Ostrimu, MBBUT, to do it better if it’s possible. But it’s readable.
I went ahead and deleted my original thread entry. I hope that
doesn’t open a parallel rift in the swamp gas or anything.
That would suck to get snuffed this early in the year.
Wow, I missed this and left Smedley at the altar, poor puppy. In my defense, after I wrote my entry I got a call that we had to rush to Tennessee because my Uncle was in bad shape. So I say yes belatedly. Thanks Windrose
“Grams,” said Crete gingerly. This wasn’t the sort of thing you just mentioned casually.
Grams was either ignoring him, or couldn’t hear him in her advancing age.
“Grams,” Crete tried again.
Grams sat perfectly still, staring at nothing specific.
“Grammy,” Crete said, a little louder, changing his tack a little.
No response.
“Grams!” he called, this time much louder.
That got her attention. “What?” she replied irritably.
“Your arm’s off.” He hadn’t meant to just blurt it straight out; she didn’t just drop a cookie, but his patience was wearing a little thin.
“Excuse me?” she said with an incredulous tone.
“Your arm,” Crete repeated, pointing at the floor. “It fell off.”
“No it didn’t.” Grams said simply, refusing to follow his finger.
“It’s right there,” Crete insisted, motioning more urgently toward the fallen limb.
“My arm is just fine. See?” Her shoulder moved sightly under her flower-print dress, but the vacant sleeve just swayed slightly. Grams seemed to notice that something wasn’t quite right. She furrowed her brow, looked over at her shoulder, and followed it down to where the rest of her arm should have been. She waggled her shoulder experimentally, as if that would shake her arm loose from wherever it had gotten stuck. The sleeve swayed piteously. She peered over her lap to the floor where Crete was still pointing. “Bugger,” Grams lamented.
Crete noted the sad look on her face. “I’ll get it,” he said, getting up out of his chair. He bent over and grabbed the limb. It was cold, and the skin hung alarmingly loose on the bones. It flopped in his hand as the elbow straightened out. Crete was creeped out beyond measure, and he handed it back to his grandmother, unable to completely keep the look of mixed disgust and horror off his face.
Grams took the limb with her remaining hand, worked it into the hanging sleeve and mashed it back into its socket. Despite having seen it before, he was still surprised not only because it stayed but, but continued to work, too. It only further reaffirmed the fact that when Grams had died, she really should have stayed dead. Sure, at first, it was incredible. Grams had come back to life half an hour after being declared legally dead, and everyone in the family was ecstatic to have her back when they thought they’d all lost her.
But it didn’t take long before everyone started realizing that something was very wrong. She spent a day completely unable to move because of what everyone later realized was rigor mortis. After the rigor broke, she was quite sprightly, moreso than her usual self. That only lasted a few days though. Gradually, her skin began to sag and her movements started slowing down. She didn’t seem to be in any pain — indeed, she didn’t seem to feel any pain at all, as was evidenced by the time she bent over to pick up her stockings and smacked her head on a table. She didn’t even notice. Everyone else noticed, however — nobody had witnessed the event, nor did she tell anyone, but the persistent dent in the skin of her forehead coupled with the absence of any bruising made everyone to start suspecting she hadn’t quite come back to the same sort of life she had before she died.
The final proof came when Crete’s brother, Orfis, during an argument over the “resurrection” came straight out and told her that she should have stayed dead. Grams slapped him, and because his head recoiled in the direction of the slap, he was able to follow her hand as it tumbled across the room and landed in the dog’s water dish. The dog, ever curious, went over to the water dish to take a sniff, yelped, then ran and hid under the couch. Grams was so angry that she went and snatched the hand and shoved it back onto her wrist. It took her a minute to realize what had just transpired. She looked at her hand and wiggled her fingers. She spent only a moment in stunned disbelief before she realized it meant she could slap him again. So she did. That was two weeks ago.
“Grams, we need to talk about this,” Crete said gently.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Grams replied in a flat but firm tone.
“Grams, don’t you see what’s happening?”
“I said there’s nothing to ta–” That was as far as she got before the pressure in her mouth from the forceful consonant shot her tongue across the room to land with a plop on an end table. The dog reflexively crawled under the couch.
Grams stared regretfully at the damp organ lying on the end table. “Ma haom,” she said sadly, a single tear rolling down her cheek, followed by her eye.
Crete sighed. She was getting worse. He got up from his chair once again and headed to the kitchen to grab some tongs. Upon returning, he saw that she had grabbed her fallen eye and appeared to be looking at herself with it. “Grams,” he started.
She pointed the eye in her hand at him. “Ma haom!” she said loudly.
Crete rolled his eyes in the normal way the living are wont to do and walked over to the end table. He grabbed the tongue gingerly between the tongs and carried it over to Grams, dropping it in her other outstretched palm before sitting down again. He decided to keep the tongs handy.
Grams shoved the tongue back in her mouth and worked her jaw for several moments, then popped her eye back in.
“Grams,” Crete tried again.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Grams said softly.
“You know I’m right.”
“I know no such thing!” Grams snapped.
“You’re falling apart — literally! And it’s only getting worse.” Crete pleaded.
Grams stared at him for what seemed like a long time. Her left eye slowly drifted to one side of its own accord. “When I died in that hospital and my soul left my body, I could see all of my loving family gathered around and weeping for my loss. It made me sad, so, so sad. I didn’t want to pass into eternity being sad, and I certainly didn’t want to make all of you sad. I don’t know what happened, but next thing I know I woke up and was back with all of you, and all I knew was that I never wanted to leave any of you ever again. And I won’t. I won’t, do you hear me?”
Crete sighed and studied his shoes. It was an effective guilt trip. How could he respond to that without seeming insensitive? He loved his grandmother, he really did, and everyone was sad to see her go, but it was just her time. She had had a long and fulfilling life, and just as everyone must at some point, it was her time to pass on and let the living go on doing so. But he couldn’t say that without it coming off sounding like he wanted her to die. Again. Or whatever it was zombies did when they ceased to function.
It was clear that the only thing that could be done now was to wait for her become so decomposed that she couldn’t do anything without something falling off. That couldn’t possibly be much longer. “Alright,” Crete resigned. “As you wish. Can I get you anything?”
Grams thought a moment. “Well, I am feeling a bit peckish.”
“Sure,” Crete said. “What would you like?”
Grams stared at him. Her demeanour seemed to shift slightly. She raised an eyebrow and gave a slight, droopy smile as her eyes narrowed. She licked her lips.
All at once, Crete understood the look. “Oh crap.”
Grams leaped.
Well done, sir! Doors, many doors.
Brilliant!
That was…..wow. *applauds*
I can’t give you enough doors for this!
A brazillion doors MF
Thank you all. Nothing like a little zombie tale to start the new year. 🙂
*rubs hands together*
It’s going to be a gooooood year.
Well, kids, we got the year kick-started and now it’s time to say good night to all our company! And punching two strangers in the box. How odd. Cindy B. and Jane, Punchity Punch Punch!
G’Night, Forrest Lawn!