Walmart Funeral... blue plastic bags optional

Walmart isn't well known as a funeral service, but apparently, they do cater to the needs of the recently deceased.

The Walmart Funeral Home

From the gaudy, never fade, colored plastic or silk flowers to adorn the carefully mounded dirt to cover your mortal remains to the actual container that will hold said remains, Walmart is here for you in your time of need.

The website doesn't exactly scream about their merchandise for funerals, but seeking to have a finger in every pie or a hand on every urn, Walmart sells caskets, urns and all sorts of items you might need to take care of your dearly departed family member be they animal or human.

In a cost conscious society, people are looking ever more diligently for ways to save a dime on Aunt Maybelle's funeral and Walmart is here to help.

Funeral home trying to make a unjust profit on your suffering and grief?

Never fear, folks! Walmart is here to help with low priced supplies that will be sent to the funeral home of your choice - and in most states, they HAVE TO ACCEPT DELIVERY because of their state laws that require the consumers to have the ability to shop around for funeral services and merchandise needed to lay to rest those who have passed on before us.

There is one small caveat to this savings bonanza. Walmart does NOT accept returns on funeral items.

So if Aunt Maybelle makes a startling recovery, you are stuck with your purchase of the "Generously sized Star Legacy's Regal Wide Body casket". 

Despite the fact that it "has extended dimensions width combined with an adjustable bed", the casket can't be returned unless it is damaged in shipping. 

So unless Bubba Ray, the local delivery man, is willing to take a $20 to drop it just a little bit, you are stuck with the "exceptional quality, sleek design and squared corners that add to its contoured look". 

Of course, come Halloween next year, that "hand-tailored white crepe interior and hand-painted, high gloss antique gunmetal" will come in handy for your front porch display.You can be thankful that it is galvanized metal, which means that your casket will never rust. So all those nasty kids that let their dogs poop on your yard will get a little taste of their own medicine when you make them poop in their pants after you jump up out of your very own casket on All Hallows Eve.

And, as an added bonus, you can always use the adjustable pillow and mattress to take care of the unexpected house guests that dropped in early for the funeral that now isn't happening.

The one thing that really puzzled me about this mad dash for a slice of the funeral commerce pie however, was the notation on the Walmart site that indicated that you could purchase these items as GIFTS!

G - I - F - T -S. Gifts.

Imagine the surprise on Christmas morning when Uncle Burford opens HIS present."We was thankin 'bout you and thought you might like THIS!"

Of course, it can also make an attractive and timely "Mother-in-Law" gift. 

Just who decided Walmart was the next option in line for helping the bereaved through this painful time? 

And why on earth is it so dang funny?

Maybe later on I'll have some answers, but right now, I'm too busy thinking about how you'd go about using those handy little gift cards to help you purchase that rose casket you've always wanted when it comes your time to go...

Y'all be nice.

It's a need.

And Walmart is meeting a need.

Just like they always do.

I only have one question: Is it wrong to pick up a six pack of Pepsi and some Cheetos when you're picking up the casket for the services?

Downward Dog and Other Lies

"Come, you take yoga class. It be good for you. You see, it easy. You like.'

The little Oriental woman who is in my aqua arthritis class invited me. And yes, she really talks that way, that isn't some kind of biased nonsense. She's only been in the USA a very short time and her English isn't that polished yet.

Because she is so nice and because I am trying to figure out just how this gym membership works out for the various classes I'd like to try, I said yes.

I rode the stationery bike for just over 3 miles as the warm-up. I thought I knew what was coming.

Downward dog is code for 'you will hurt in places that even God didn't know you had'. Then, the fun began.

As we went through various moves, positions and maneuvers, our slightly built diminutive instructor talked about how these moves were relaxing and so easy.

As compared with building a space-worthy vehicle from a toothpick and some cotton balls, that may well be true. But the conceptual portion of the class was a universe apart from the reality that aliens who bent in unnatural ways inhabited that mirrored room.

I closed my eye so that I wouldn't be assaulted by the visual image of me and my contorted body to torture my senses. It was bad enough that I was experiencing it both internally and externally. I had no desire to have a permanent visual record of my agony to replay on loop for all eternity.

Even now, several hours later, I am wondering what the point to the various poses really was. Some of them, alleged to stretch various segments of the body, have left a kind of muscular-skeletal agony that is seldom reproduced in a full impact crash with another vehicle. I can attest to that having been in several collisions during my life.

At the end of the class, we were all encouraged to 'lie flat on our backs with our arms stretched out to our sides' so that we 'could enjoy a brief rest'. I confess that mine was more like a spread-eagle pose of complete exhaustion.

Those serene yogi who teach the various yoga positions on television do not sweat. I doubt that their training allows for it since they are all about relaxation, stretching and being so much more than limber.

Since I am neither serene nor yogi-like in my skills, I think I could rival the production of sweat from the last three Preakness winners. I was actually afraid that I might drown in the pool when it came time for that segment of the exercise.

The next time someone encourages you to join a class because you will like it and it will be easy, realize that there are only three reasons they do this.

#1 - they are new to the class themselves and don't want to go alone and since you already share one class, they feel that they are comfortable enough to ask you to attend,

#2 - they are genuinely hoping you will enjoy something new and different,

or, what I consider to be the most logical selection,

#3 - they are the worst in the class at mastering the yoga positions and they have tagged you as the logical replacement for chief laughingstock in the room.

Downward dog is not for wimps and it hurts if you don't do it normally.

I have come to understand that 'yoga' is another 4-letter word. And today it was really naughty.