Wednesday, November 12, 2008

A Sick Sense of Humor

My son picks up dead people.
I know how that sounds. But before you start searching through the Yellow Pages for exorcists, let me explain. Matt now has a job picking up dead bodies. Oh, but it gets better. He got the job from the petting zoo lady who helped kids ride horses at our Fall Festival this weekend. Can my family fall into the bizarre, or what?
Okay, so here's the story. Told as only a good story can be through the Boyds' sick sense of humor.
it seems in addition to running a petting zoo, the lady also runs some other businesses. One of these businesses has contracts with several different funeral parlors. When it's time to transport the deceased to the funeral home, this lady does the job. She told Matt she'd pay him per job.
I must admit, I was irritated at first. After all, I've been praying for Matt to get more work. But if I keep that up, am I now hurrying people off into eternity? You must admit, there is a moral dilemma here.
So today Matt told me he had a meeting with the dead people. Actually, he had a meeting with the transporters of the dead people. I think accuracy is pretty important in this case! When they get a call, they have one hour to get to the--scene of the deceased. So when Matt gets a call, he has ten minutes to get dressed in his black suit and meet his partner. It was suggested that Matt always carry a suit with him in his car since they never know when their services are needed.
Who knew there was this whole arena of service needed in our world? To think that there are men (or women) all over the country, carrying suits with them as they run errands to the post office or the grocery store--just waiting for a call to go in to work.
On the plus side, I'd think there isn't much in the way of training needed for this job. And I imagine these employees don't get a lot of customer complaints. Then again, they don't get repeat customers either. And their services sure aren't advertised by word of mouth.
When Matt got home and told us about his new job, we responded in typical Boyd fashion. Matt said his employers pick up about 125 bodies a month. We figured how many bodies that would be a week and how much money Matt would be earning as he's paid by the job. Then my husband's face lit up and he asked Matt if he needed a helper. "We could take care of this together," he said.
"How?" Matt asked. "You kill them and I pick them up? Job security?"
Someone else mentioned that true job security in this field probably meant having a contract with the Mob.
We then discussed the fact that Matt probably needed a special ringtone on his phone so he would know when he was needed for work. The usual choices were mentioned including taps and that "dummm-dum-dum-dum" that happens in overly dramatic movies. I finally suggested that, since he was trying to get enough money for Christmas, his work ringtone could be "It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas". Probably not the best choice as far as good taste goes, though.
So now Matt is a--well, what do you call someone in his line of work? A dead-end taxi service? A corpse courier? How about after-last-minute transportation? A mortality engineer?
All I know is, I want him to stop answering the phone with the following message: "City Morgue. You stab 'em, we slab 'em. This is Stiff speaking!"

3 comments:

  1. Too funny! Sounds like easy money to me. I'd do it in a heartbeat!

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  2. You are so funny!!! You can make pretty serious things look like the funniest things on earth. I have to say you surprise me :)

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  3. Ingrid, were you doing a play on words when you said you would do it it "in a heartbeat"? : )
    Pilar, I'm glad you thought it was funny. I was a little hesitant to post this one!

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