Dead End…

My dead cat was cremated and her ashes returned home yesterday in a black plastic pot with a brass nameplate with the inscription ‘Marge’.

On the plus side she leaves less hair around the house than she used to, but on the minus side it’s not quite the same getting her to curl up in my lap as I sit down to write.

The Missus sensed I was still a tad upset and kept her counsel when I requested her ashes be kept in my office until we found a decent burial site in the garden, and the Boy just stared in a confused manner as I shouted him downstairs and told him to welcome Marge home.

On the day Marge died me and the Missus were talking and I said something along the lines of ‘She was a rescue cat, we looked after her and loved her, and at the end she died surrounded by those she loved. There are worse ways to go…’

Sadly none of these have yet befallen Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, George Bush, Robert Mugabe, Gillian McKeith or Ross Kemp but we live in hope, eh?

This point did, however, bring up a discussion on dying and how we’d like to go so I’m now working out my funeral plan and here’s what’s so far decided:

i) Music to include: Lust For Life by Iggy Pop; I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive by Hank Williams; Our Last Song Together by Neil Sedaka; and finally Firestarter by The Prodigy (must be done as a singalong as the coffin goes in for cremation).
ii) Readings to include: Something short by Bukowski (So Now from Betting On The Muse but substitute ‘Linda’ for ‘the Missus’). Nothing from the Bible. It’s too long and everyone will want to get to the pub.
iii) Wake to include: No tears, paper party hats, streamers and rude jokes. No-one is allowed in unless they have a prepared joke and everyone must tell their joke to at least three people.

I think that’s quite a good start.