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Generation In-Between: A Xennial Podcast
Xennial co-hosts Dani and Katie talk about their analog childhoods, digital adulthoods and everything in between. If you love 1980's and 1990's pop culture content, this is the podcast for you!
Generation In-Between: A Xennial Podcast
PATREON BONUS: Funeral Home Work with Benny
Happy Thanksgiving week, listeners! We're so grateful for you that we're releasing two of our Patreon-only bonus episodes, including this one with our buddy Benny. Enjoying the bonus content? Head on over to Patreon to become a monthly subscriber for just $8 per month.
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hello patrons. Welcome to our bonus episode or bonus after show. Never fear, benny is still here, or maybe you should fear, I'm getting my second wind another hour coming up maybe not sometimes it
Speaker 3:goes long. I mean, there have been times where we're like oh yeah, we're doing. Patron right now I'm not like a real one.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well. So Whatever Go where the wind takes you, that's right, and when there is no wind in here, so that means you're going to sit here. Reminder the air is very still. There was one time they were putting a roof on when we were recording.
Speaker 3:Do you?
Speaker 1:remember that time. Yeah, we're really good with. And then there was like one time weird sounds were just coming through, but that's a different story. Danny doesn't like to think about that. This room might be haunted, but sometimes there's a piano over there. Sounds come through the piano, it's fine.
Speaker 2:You've got to have a certain school of thinking about what is and isn't haunted though, right.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Like certainly for a place to be haunted. Someone would have had to have died in that place.
Speaker 1:Right, which I don't think anybody's died here, you don't know that I don't know. I should look. You know, like Poltergeist had like it was like on a burial ground. That's a good point. You don't know.
Speaker 2:Maybe in this unit, exactly not. You moved the headstones, but you left the bodies.
Speaker 1:See.
Speaker 2:Oh, I didn't think about that. The real who sells in the land is james karen, who plays uh frank in 1985's return of the living debt, which is one of my five favorite.
Speaker 3:He was also the maytag man for a little while wow, that is a super fun piece of zennial yeah that's really cool more reasons to just not play trivia against me ever I know if y'all haven't listened to our episode or full episode yet with Ben, please go do that. You know what? I didn't even ask you. I've been calling you Ben the whole time. I should ask if you want me to call you Benny instead.
Speaker 2:No, it's too late to edit it.
Speaker 3:I know I'm fine with whatever, apologies.
Speaker 2:Just don't call me late for dinner.
Speaker 3:You're right. Apologies, oh my gosh Jeez. All right, so what are we chatting about?
Speaker 1:Okay, so when we stopped recording the other episode, I explained to Benny I'm going to call him Benny.
Speaker 3:I know I fucked it up for the past hour and a half. It's fine.
Speaker 1:I just said, on the after show we just kind of like talk about either something adjacent to the topic or something totally different. And it turns out Benny has something adjacent, which is that he used to work at a funeral home. That's right. What did to work at a funeral home?
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:What did you?
Speaker 3:do at the funeral home.
Speaker 2:I was a funeral assistant, which means you assist with funerals.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:It means that you work in the business of could be daily tasks. If you're in office, you would perform services like going and picking up death certificates. Okay services like going and picking up death certificates, maybe going on flower deliveries, maybe setting up for funeral services, whether they're in the funeral home chapel or they're at an adjacent church where everything's been scheduled, possibly going to the burial site or going to the cemetery, and if that's where the proceedings are there, and then the part that I'm obviously leaving out you would perform removal services.
Speaker 1:What's that mean? So you would go get dead people.
Speaker 2:Go get them.
Speaker 3:Okay, was this like a depressing job?
Speaker 2:It can be. I will save a lot of the details of what about it can be. A lot of the details of what about it can be there were when I first started doing the job, um, for the first five or six months, and I and look. The reason I did it is the reason a lot of people do odd jobs like that I needed money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course Um and it was a good job and I knew the uh owner and he's a very nice guy, this gentleman named Courtney. Very nice guys, a gentleman named Courtney, I love him. And I got along with all the funeral directors Dave and Eric and Darcy, who unfortunately has passed recently, but these were the guys I would work with every day, and Jay over at the cemetery. They were great guys and great people just in general, but they tried to keep it a little bit lighter, just around what you had to do, and treat it like a business, but not morbidly so. But when you're first working there you definitely have to check yourself. I mean there were a couple of services we had performed and again, I won't go into the details of those because they are depressing and sad that weigh on you when you get done with them.
Speaker 2:But then there were other items that didn't do that right and there were other things that were kind of funny about the job, because you tend to learn that the dead aren't the problem.
Speaker 3:No, of course.
Speaker 2:It's the living. So when you would perform removal services, it could be during the day and if you got the call, that was drop what you're doing. You're doing laundry. You're folding sheets right now, Like it can wait. You're washing. You're washing the hearse right now. Stop washing the hearse. Got to go get the van. Go get them so you'd go to either hospitals, hospice care centers or households. Those would be the three places you could go to.
Speaker 3:Oh man, I don't think I realized that dead bodies if you died in like a house, they didn't go somewhere before they went to the funeral, like they go straight from the house well, it depends, because the the fourth place that I didn't mention doesn't begin with an h, and that's the medical examiner's office.
Speaker 2:So if you, if you went to the me, you were picking someone up, who know, maybe it was a roadside collision or mysterious circumstances.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:So when you go to a house, you'd get the first to get the phone call. You'd get the call says I'd like to report we need somebody to come perform removal services and if it, was a hospital it depends. If it's a hospital, it'd be a nurse or doctor, uh, practicing member there, and 99% of the time when you're going to a hospital, they've already been moved to the morgue of the hospital. You're you're not interacting with anyone. You're going to the back door, You're in and out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, weird side story with a morgue, I'd like, as you're saying this, I'm remembering my mom growing up. She was an ER nurse. She was like head nurse of the ER. So her office. I hated having to go stay in her office because it was smaller than this room. It was like an old closet that they just made an office. But right next to her office was the morgue because there's an outer door and so I could hear them coming to pick up. When that door, outdoor door, was open, I knew that there was a body coming out. When I heard the wheels turning instead of going straight down the hall, I knew that they were bringing a body, so I would always know when. To just sit there and not come out Terrified me, which my mom would always tell me the same thing she's like they're dead. What are you scared of? Like, I don't like not to be insensitive, but you know right, no, yeah, anyway.
Speaker 2:So as you're talking about morgan, think I'm like I'm visualizing that hospital and you like coming here comes that door, yeah so when you got the call, if it was a nurse or a doctor, you'd be like it's fine, probably going to you.
Speaker 3:You know Like.
Speaker 2:Very rarely, not to say that it doesn't happen You're going to get somebody off of an operating table Right, like oh, very rarely, you're not, you're, you're going to be going to the morgue Almost every single time.
Speaker 3:Okay, Like the only time you town yeah.
Speaker 2:People are just dying to get in there.
Speaker 1:So I needed.
Speaker 2:They're not all winners.
Speaker 1:Danny, they're not all winners.
Speaker 3:Where's my jump set? It came in later.
Speaker 2:When you go to a hospice care facility, you would be called by again a practicing nurse or someone on staff. Families might be there, you may have to greet them. It's when you're feeling about the job morphed, when you realize you were working for a better purpose for people. You were providing them support in a time where they weren't necessarily good with the support or good mentally things just happened.
Speaker 2:Generally, when you went to a hospice care facility, though, you were dealing with very reasonable, very good, very nice people, because and I maintain this if you've ever had a loved one myself included in hospice previously, the worst feeling is admitting them into hospice in the first place. It's knowing that you lost the battle or that you're at the point of we cannot change what's going to happen, but we can try to make them comfortable. That's much worse. Going to a house or residence is a mixed bag. You might've gotten a call and it might've been an in-home hospice. So same situation, you're not worried about it, but then you'd get the call, and there would be plenty of times you'd get the call and it would be yeah, this is Officer James from the police department. We've got one. I'm like are they in bed? Are they on the floor? Are they at the bottom of a staircase? Are they in the shower? Are they in the bottom of a staircase? Are they in the shower? Are they in a position where they're easy to lift? How much do you think they weigh? Because you never knew.
Speaker 2:Now, the rule of houses was, whereas with hospitals and hospice care facilities, only one person would go and you'd do the job by yourself. You needed to send two people. It's a security thing and also just a measurable thing. So again, that would be during the day shift. If you worked the night shift, the rules were very simple 5 pm to 8 am you're on call. Stay in town and stay sober. That's all we ask you to do. At any point between 5 pm and 8 am you could get called. If you don't get called, you're going to make a minimum amount of money every night just for being on call.
Speaker 2:You're automatically paid this amount every night for being on call. If you do get called and the call takes you 30, 45 minutes to complete, well, that's fine, we're going to pay you two hours, right? If it takes more than that, we're going to pay you up to that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I mean there were plenty of nights where you could get no calls and nothing would happen. You'd rest easy. And then there were nights where you'd get a call at six, you'd get a call at 10, you'd get a call at four, and that's disruptive sleep pretty bad. But you probably did three hours of work for got paid, maybe eight or nine hours of work.
Speaker 2:So you're not, you're not in bad. No, you look at those positives you always get. You always get the call at 2 AM. You got to put on and if you, if you don't know, you're not just going out there in a tank top and shorts, you know.
Speaker 1:Hey, I'm here to pick up the body.
Speaker 2:So I'm getting up, brush my teeth, comb my hair. I don't have time to shower, I got to go. You know, put on the three piece suit, spray down my funk and my body so that I don't smell horrible. Not that carting around a dead body is going to help.
Speaker 3:It's weird, the things we worry about. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:So you get in the van and you're like, oh, they're out in the middle of a field or they're in some farm 25 minutes away. They're not conveniently five minutes from where the van is Of course.
Speaker 2:And the whole time in your brain you're selfishly like oh, I'm so tired, I hate this, this sucks. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and you get to the house and you put on the professional face and they open the door and they'll say something to you like we're just so thankful that you're here and all of your self-absorbed narcissism washes away when you realize someone is having a worse day than you are and you are here to help them.
Speaker 2:And there were plenty of times I ended up in places with people who I knew and it wasn't awkward because it was a professional environment. I want to tell you really quickly about a very specific trip that I had made. I could tell you two of them, but one of them involves a new guy who refused to grab a pantsless man around the ankles because it was you know. So it's two of us. It's a big guy. He'd had a heart attack in his home. He clearly had a heart attack trying to put on his pants. He was going commando under the pants. So he's on the bed back down and he's face up and he's got one leg up his pants around his ankle. He's just hanging out.
Speaker 2:He's just hanging out.
Speaker 3:I mean what else it's the human?
Speaker 2:anatomy in its most natural form correct uh, dead and flaccid I was gonna say dead, dead and flaccid. It's the name of my third studio album that's our next hashtag live and dangerous. You've heard of live and dangerous. It's dead.
Speaker 2:I love it um, so we go to pick him up and it's gonna take two of us to pick him up and this guy was kind of a. I had had a lot of problems with his etiquette already, with the way that he would present himself, because he would. He would do a lot of talking in front of the police officers at different places and be like you're not showing any level of decorum, like the family's right over there. Stop shooting the shit with the cops.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Our job is to literally get really get in and get out, yeah, and give them the card so they can call in the morning, also, like we're getting paid for two hours if we're out for 20 minutes let's get in and get out right, and so if I'm home and the next call comes in, that starts the two hour clock over again yeah it's not a continual like use your head right uh, he had done not a lot of removals.
Speaker 2:He was clearly self-conscious about picking up a body, as some people may be, but, like, at the end of the day there's, it's not going to bite you, it's not a zombie, it's not going to suddenly like repel, vomit on you. That's not how this works. It is true, people expel themselves, but that has already usually happened.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So so you may deal with that.
Speaker 3:But like, whatever you wrap people in a sheet, you're fine. I don't think I could be fine. I would panic, I would not being by dead people. I think you'd be okay, you'd be alright. I don't think I could do it.
Speaker 2:I asked him what he would rather do Pick up the legs or pick up the torso. Torso's got a lot more weight on it.
Speaker 3:But the legs, legs. He's got a, he's got a penis point now and he could not get past it.
Speaker 2:Well, he has a penis, right, yes, but it's not the dead penis he's looking at. So he goes to pick up the legs and he basically, like almost instantly, drops. And I'm like I said to him flat out. I said, if you don't man up and do this, like, man up. I was like, if you don't do this, like, I will switch the legs and you can take the torso. But I want to be really clear If he hits the floor, you're going to call the funeral director and you're going to do this by yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Never went on a removal service with him again.
Speaker 3:So what did?
Speaker 2:he do, he manned up, he did it, but you know it was like you're not. It's not like you're. This isn't a hook that you're gripping. You're grabbing by the legs.
Speaker 3:You're not carrying by the penis.
Speaker 2:But he was a bigger guy, so the shit kept going undone, so it kept winking at him.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, that's hilarious.
Speaker 2:And he just couldn't handle it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I wouldn't either. That's what I meant. Maybe.
Speaker 2:We got called out to a house in a farm area once and it was maybe 6 pm Sun was barely going down, it was like an hour after the on-call had started and it was myself and this guy, jay, a wonderful guy, heart of gold, face of stone. Nothing could break Jay. Nothing could break Jay. Nothing could break Jay. He was a great guy and we get called out to this farmhouse where they have. He was a hospice care removal old man but should be easy Drive out there 25, 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:We get there, we walk in and it's a big main room. There's a half wall right here next to the door. We walked in, there's a half wall and they've got just all this food, all these people. It's like potluck style. They got music on in the background. It's a big, big wall back. So I'm thinking he's probably out back, out back and everybody's over. We're not going to mourn his death, we're going to celebrate his life and I'm like great, I love your attitude, love your spirit, love all that. So, uh, you know, we get in, we talk to the guys. They're like yeah, you know, everybody's just over. We're sharing memories, having a good time, having food. I'm like cool, uh, you know the food spread's going all the way back and around. It's just this big hall with the half wall to our left and we say, okay, can you take us to him so we can remove him. You turn around the half wall. He's in the room with all the food.
Speaker 2:He's in the room with all the celebrating and you die. You lose your jaw muscles. So he's in the room.
Speaker 3:Oh, my word.
Speaker 2:Uncovered.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Laying there and they're just having a party around him.
Speaker 3:Like having a cocktail with grandpa just died right there. No, a little hootenanny. Oh my.
Speaker 2:So when we're there to remove him, it's time to remove him. His wife is there and we say to her do you want to take a moment? The hospice nurse is still there as well and she takes a moment. It's very nice. People kind of watch and congregate and then she steps back and it's fine. We go to wrap him, everything's fine. We've got like 30 people watching us. We wrap him, we get him on the gurney and, um, he had been.
Speaker 2:It's not always requested, but there are times where they'll ask us to do the flag for service, um, and at that time I believe we had one to do. So we go to put the flag over top as we're going to wheel him out, and his wife, just like, all of a sudden catastrophically fits, oh, and as she does, four or five people go gather on her we've got them strapped down at this point and the hospice nurse I look at jay, like what do we do? Jay looks at me stone face is like he just throws his hands. I'm like I don't know. And the hospital nurse like go, just go, just go, just go. We get out, we get, we get him loaded in, we start driving back and jay, five minutes in total silence, looks back at me and says probably could have hung around for a few more minutes, would have gotten a twofer. It was the first time I'd ever heard him crack a joke in my life and it broke the tension because the whole situation was so bizarre.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm just picturing, like what would you do in a situation like that, like party around a dead body, then the wife passes out, everybody's watching you trying to do your job, I don't know yeah and your job is, that's, to remove the person who's already deceased.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're being delicate to a point, obviously, like I need to be forceful with someone who's, you know I'd recovered little old ladies who were probably 70 pounds at the time of their passing. You know, they were very old, they were, they lived a full life. So you know, you get back to put them into refrigeration and you're just clutching, clutching the sheets and bent you know, yeah, press top shelf. You're not hurting them, you're not doing anything like that, but it's, it's, it's part of the nature of the business, like it's what you're, you're doing, but you're very careful.
Speaker 2:you make sure to take care of people's loved ones yeah you hear about it all the time like oh well, you know, we're gonna take them into our care. That literally means our care yeah you know we're not gonna sit here and it's the what I said to the guy when he almost dropped him. Like you ain't you're, we're not, you're not allowed. This is not an option so what happens if we?
Speaker 2:drop them. That's not an option. Dropping, it's not an option for two reasons one, having to explain it. Two, physically getting someone off of the floor. The literal terminology of dead weight, I wouldn't push anybody, no, no, no, oh my gosh, have you seen?
Speaker 1:the and and maybe it's not that funny now that I'm listening to you now, but the recent snl skit where they have the dead body on the water slide I don't think I have. I don't think I have play for you, but essentially it's um, they're standing at the top of the slide and a guy, an old man, walked all the step. The skit is that this man walked up all these steps and then had a heart attack at the top, so he's at the top of the water slide.
Speaker 1:So there's the two lifeguards and the emts and they're like wow, sure, a lot of stairs. And the one lifeguard. The one lifeguard's like uh, you are not pushing him down the slide, this is a human being. And they're like, oh, we know, we know, but now that you mention it and it's like a whole thing, it just made me think of that. But she's saying, like the things you're saying, she's like this is a human being with a family, like you're not pushing him down a water slide, but also, if I died at the top, of a water slide, I'd be fine.
Speaker 3:They just push my body down. I think, what about the?
Speaker 1:EMTs say that they're like well, I think he really wanted to go down the water slide.
Speaker 3:He wanted to go on it.
Speaker 2:It's a real thing, like, look, if it's going to make the job easier, I can see how this would be. I had a recovery once on a. We had two cots in the back of the van. We had to remove one of them. We put in the specialized cot that we had that was intended to bear more weight. He was probably 400 pounds.
Speaker 3:Wow. And there was just two of you.
Speaker 2:Two of us and the nurse. Getting them onto the cot was a struggle, but we got them, wow and like that. At that point it doesn't steer. The stretcher doesn't steer, doesn't do anything. Now, the way those are designed, when you shove them into the back of the van you do need to shove with just a little bit of force, but you have a lever you release as you shove that releases the wheels. So if you do it with the right timing, you push right over the lip of the van, the wheels collapse and it's now flat in the back of the van.
Speaker 2:It's not easy to do when you got a 400-pound guy, so I had to go right up to it, line it right up and then, as soon as I released this, handle, shove with all your might, and if he's crooked I don't care, so long as he's in the back like and.
Speaker 2:and that's what it was, because it's like you have to do that yeah but you also have to do it without being like if I release this handle too early, then this whole thing comes crashing to the ground and he's still on the gurney, but now the gurney's on the ground oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So you gotta yeah, and that's not gonna happen, I could call the fire. Yeah, at that point I feel like, with a job like that too, every I mean every call is different. Yeah, you just described these wildly different stories. You literally don't know what you're walking into, maybe if you're going to the morgue or whatever. Most of the time, yeah, I mean, you don't know what to expect when you get there.
Speaker 2:I'll save you from the ones when you go to the me, because, interestingly enough, those are the stories where you are 100 fully told and aware ahead of time what you're walking into dang and I will just leave it at, and that doesn't make it easier no, no, I will say that's the ladies who work in the me the. Uh, they're fantastic. One of them goes to my gym. We talk all the time. They're really great people who do some of the easily the worst work you can possibly do.
Speaker 3:I can't. Imagine.
Speaker 2:And they do amazing work and they're very wonderful people.
Speaker 1:And it's important work A hundred percent yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't think I could ever, I don't know work A hundred percent. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I could ever. I don't know Some of our family friends, the house I grew up in down the street, they owned one of the local funeral homes that they still own to this day. It's still in their family and that was their like. They everybody loved them so much because they made sure they all their employees like cared for people and the way you're talking about. But I, my sister, used to. They had a daughter who was my older sister's age and they would go to work sometimes and play in the display room. They would play hide and seek in the caskets and they would get in trouble all the time.
Speaker 3:They'd be like Terry and Tara. Are y'all playing hide and seek in the casket room again?
Speaker 1:Not again, oh my God.
Speaker 2:I don't run from my history with it, they still do. Usually once a year, around Christmas, they'll do a candlelight vigil because it's a co-branded funeral home and cemetery that they work at, and they'll do a vigil at the cemetery work at um and they'll do a vigil at the cemetery.
Speaker 3:And if I'm not, you know, obligated to anything. I will go every year.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's for it, uh, and and attend and support them. Well, that, and they also have hot cocoa there I mean, I mean, they have a recipe for hot cocoa. That's really something free you know, they're not just, they're not just. You know, funeral directors and and people will they make hot cocoa at the time when I was working there and assisting because you also help in the prep room with a lot of prep- yeah gotta make people look good.
Speaker 2:You know, link abraham lincoln is the whole reason. We love embalming so very much in this country because, they took his body on tour instead of just giving him a nice, you know, dignified burial. Isn't that weird? They put him on tour instead of just giving him a nice you know, dignified burial, isn't that? Weird. They put him on tour, they embalmed him and put him on tour and the main takeaway from it was people were like he looks good For being shot in the head and bleeding out over several hours.
Speaker 3:Let me ask you all a personal question then Do you want to have an open? This is so fucking morbid. We never get this morbid on the show to have an open.
Speaker 1:this is so fucking morbid we never yeah, when we record after dark.
Speaker 3:This is the first time we've recorded after dark already the hot like my sister and I were talking about this because I was like I don't want, I just want to be cremated, like I don't want you to waste the time nor money. But my sister's like hell, no, make, look good, put me on display and cry over my casket Like we're so different. So I'm curious.
Speaker 1:Gosh, that's tricky Really. I feel like. I feel like your sister in a way. I think you do want, you want to be like. I think it depends when it happens, but I think my kids would want that. I think they'd want to see me again that way. But I don't know Like that way, see and I.
Speaker 2:But I don't know like but the practical side of me is like just cremate me. Who cares people to? I don't know? Cardboard box is 75 for a six foot human size cardboard box, roughly so what's probably gone up in the last? What is your?
Speaker 3:personal opinion. Do you want to be like?
Speaker 2:cremated yeah, yeah just throw me in the oven that's what I say to you.
Speaker 1:You know, donate my parts, what can be used, and then just burn me up, put me back in there and find like the best pictures of me ever I don't care how old they are and then do a little yeah.
Speaker 3:I told Troy, I said if, if I go before you and you have a celebration of life for me, make everybody wear a costume oh, that's so great and have and only play fun music. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do not have some lame ass sad thing. I don't want that. That's what we, that's what we did for my dad's thing was always celebrating. We went to his favorite restaurant. Oh I love that I was given the option when I flew in his wife at the time, not my mother, but, uh, my at the time stepmother. Now, now she her name is also connie, just happens to be um and she'll be down here in a couple of weeks for a Christmas story.
Speaker 1:Yay, hey, hey, hey, welcome Connie.
Speaker 2:But when he passed she gave me the option when I flew up to see him and I thought about it and it really hurt me because just thinking about it- Did you see him? And I said no. I didn't either when I was a kid Because I won't get into the sob story but I had known what he had gone through in the last couple. It was very sudden to everyone, but when you look at how he lived his last six or nine months on Earth, I don't think it was that sudden to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just think he held on to it, knowing that his time was up. I really do believe that. But yeah, we cremated him and Courtney, again at the time, was very helpful in that he helped me find the exact urn that I wanted to put him in, which I have in my house, and the reason you never notice it is because it is the same urn that the character Paul Bearer uses for the pro wrestler, the Undertaker.
Speaker 3:So he helped me find that exact model of urn I love that I will also tell you.
Speaker 2:I'll give you. This is my last thing. I swear okay we're ready so we, we took some of my father's ashes, uh to spread to a few places that he requested them be spread okay one of the places he requested them to be spread was in disneyland in california. Now, in case you're not aware, you're not allowed to enter the park with human remains oh well, I mean, for that adds up, for obvious reasons.
Speaker 2:Well, right, uh, and and certainly there would be an easy way to verify that my actual mother, margo, who will also be down in a couple of weeks. They're friends, by the way. They get along. Um, margo and connie, do she put him in rolling papers?
Speaker 3:Oh my God, that's, great.
Speaker 2:And we managed to get him in a couple of places.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:But that was a much more successful route than he had married Connie. In front of the Bellagio Fountains.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 2:So we went to go we were in Vegas as well, and we went to spread him in front of the Bellagio, the fountains, just a little bit, and it was emotional. I was there, my best friends were there, melinda was there, uh, my mom and Connie were all there. It was also uh windy, oh no, and there's this. No one's near us, right Like no one's near us, but about 15 feet away 10, 15 feet away there's this family of like three or four um tourists, uh, standing there can't understand us. They're from, I guessing, asian I'm not gonna guess past that.
Speaker 2:you know they're, they're from somewhere else, they, they don't see what we're doing or anything like that. But I mean, we're all very quiet and you know, having a moment and as I'm spreading, the wind just takes one handful and throws it right into their faces.
Speaker 3:No way, oh my God, that's like a set in a film episode and it goes from this emotional, clairvoyant moment to don't laugh. Don't laugh.
Speaker 2:Don't laugh, mark. My father's name is Mark. It's like Mark just threw himself in their faces. He got one more for the road. You know like you can believe in it, all you want. That's what happened, because from then on it was. You know, we're trying to go into the shops or somewhere to go get a drink and relax, but we're pissing ourselves laughing. Oh, I would die Because we're like oh my God, those people, we just threw my dad in their face. Oh, my God Just the updraft Just caught it.
Speaker 1:Just caught it.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. Well, maybe that's what I want.
Speaker 2:Be cremated and then just carry me around in your pocket and throw me at people. There you go, but only people you don't like. That's dead. Danny combs, how you feel now? I hope. I hope that resonates with you.
Speaker 1:I hope that sticks with you forever I thought where I would want my ashes to go. I'm gonna think about that, I don't care, you don't have anywhere special. You want them to be, it doesn't matter. I mean, when I'm dead, I'm dead. I feel like though, but like listening to you, it's it again, it's something for your family they would like to do something with them, that's fine.
Speaker 3:They can decide that I have no preference because it doesn't matter. Like we said, funerals and all that, that's not for the dead person, that's for the people who are living well, I've been told I'm on a.
Speaker 2:I've also been told that there was many years ago a purchase of a family plot done by my wife's side of the family, so that I potentially am part of that lot regardless. So my response to it is always is well, I'll be dead, I guess, doing what I want or doing whatever you want, doesn't really matter, that's true. I don't suddenly get an afterlife voice to overrule it.
Speaker 1:As I go home and start typing up all these things, I'm like, hmm, yes, I'm ready, I'm ready.
Speaker 3:I don't know. Like you know, I lost my dad at a young age and I didn't want to see him. I didn't like the idea of funerals. I didn't. I was 11. I was young, but like I, even at that young age, I was like but see, that's not my dad, now Like he's away, and so I didn't need.
Speaker 1:I don't know, like everybody's different though.
Speaker 3:Because my sister did. She did need that process, Like so I think everybody's different, but also like I don't care when I'm dead, I'm dead.
Speaker 2:So like you heard it here first, folks, If you want to, keep me, put me on a man About 90 on the freeway and just write out the song.
Speaker 3:That's fine, I'm not going to care.
Speaker 1:I'm dead. So you wouldn't be mad if I was blaring country music with all my dogs in the car.
Speaker 3:Bitch I'm dead, it's all right. All right If that makes you celebrate my life for some weird reason.
Speaker 2:I suppose the question is like okay, now let's say, your spirit is seeing this and has decided suddenly that it's got unfinished business, that's what I shall haunt you forever.
Speaker 1:That's what I would be afraid of Then I will fuck up your keyboard forever. It'll be like Katie, you are hearing things. It's Danny.
Speaker 3:Oh God, don't worry, my sister said, because there's some people who, like you, can pay to like mourn at your funeral, like at funerals, like they're paid seriously, that will go and wail and mourn. And my sister is, like you, better do that if I die before you. And why would you do that, though?
Speaker 2:I go to funerals, I take bets on who's gonna ugly cry first.
Speaker 3:I would I prefer that my sister's like I want you to throw yourself on my coffin and make like just be so ridiculous.
Speaker 2:And I'm like all right, yeah, make it as much about you as possible. Yeah, that's what today is that's what today is the thoughts and prayers crowd at its best.
Speaker 3:I know you're having it hard, but don't forget about how hard I got things yeah exactly I was like I mean, if you really want me to stop You're like I can do it, I take direction.
Speaker 1:Well. Well, that was a fun little that was weird, that was funny, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for sticking around, Benny $8 a month buys you stories like these. Don't forget.
Speaker 1:Seriously it does, and we have one after every episode. I know.
Speaker 2:It's bonus content Honestly though.
Speaker 3:Thank you for sharing that, because that is like a whole side of things that most people probably wonder about.
Speaker 1:For sure I have more questions, but I'll save them All right. Well, thank you patrons, Thanks for keeping the lights on and maybe the air conditioning. Fingers crossed by next time, and we will see you on our next after show. Bye guys.
