and there were two people standing in front of our sample photo collage board (nowhere NEAR the casket…or even the visitation parlor) for ten minutes trying to figure out who everyone was. I just watched.
i did a home removal today and this lady kept screaming in the house:
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO NOW??”
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO NOW??”
like…
idk?
grief is really interesting…
sum of the ages of the people I buried and took to the crematory today. today was insanely difficult.
also that number is dishearteningly low considering that 5 people were buried/cremated today.
it’s been a while since we did “by the numbers,” hasn’t it?
that’s what this kid keeps yelling at this visitation and I’m not sure how much longer I can take it. and I’m working it alone with this lady that I can’t stand…like I just wanna sit down and play peggle and grunt at people. so not into this today.
also if this other kid pokes his head in the office one more time I’m gonna pop him in the face.
just not into this tonight at all, or in general at present. although I’ve always hated working visitation. but I’m kinda in the mood to just start completely over or something and invent a whole new history and personality. maybe I’ll just shave my head and call it a day.
anyways, here’s what we’re really here for:
the other night, I got called out for a nursing home removal around 3:00 in the morning to a place that I’m not a big fan of going to. I got there and banged the shit out of their door and my shins trying to get the cot in because they had two sets of doors that were positioned at a distance that created a tiny mud room that was smaller than my cot, and the second door opened into the entry way, making it extremely difficult to get the cot in. it’s a common set up, but these places usually have a handicap button to open the doors automatically, or the night nurse or security guard usually has the common courtesy to grab one of the doors. such was not the case.
anyways, after that whole ORDEAL, they showed me to the room and just stood outside, which is fairly common. I went in and saw that there were two guys in the room…one guy who looked dead on a BED MADE OUT OF PVC PIPES ON THE GROUND, and another guy in a regular bed with a sheet covering his face.
now, it’s really common for old people to look really dead when they’re asleep. I’ve seen it a ton of times at nursing homes, and I think I told the story one time of how I started to move somebody off of a bed who was just asleep and started coughing when I did, but didn’t even wake up. if I didn’t tell that story, there it is in a nutshell.
anyways, I stared at both, and neither one looked like they were breathing.
so who would you go for?
I’m sorry but the right answer is the guy with the sheet over his head.*
so I started moving all of his shit out of the way…tray, chairs, dresser, etc, then I sidled my cot up to his bed, lowered it to the same level, then touched his shoulder and HE REACHED UP AND PULLED THE SHEET OFF HIS FACE
“omg I’m so sorry”
“that’s okay just move my tray back”
so then the nurses hear me and I go out and they’re like “can you see?” and they turn the light on, and I tell them what happened, and they’re like, “ohhh yeah, he do that all the time!”
wtf!!!!
so then I got the guy on the crazy PVC pipe bed (still not sure what that was about) who was actually very dead and went home
*(the actual correct answer is to just ask the three nurses outside the room who the dead person is, but that wouldn’t have made for a good story, would it? have to take a chance and find out what’s behind the curtain sometimes. or, rather, the bed sheet.)
