My Post-Whammy Plan

I was bummed to hear that Press Your Luck game show host Peter Tomarken died in a plane crash earlier this week. Yes, he had big bucks, big bucks, but in the end, even he could not avoid The Whammy.

The Rockette and I heard the news while we were looking for some important documents. Then it hit us. Although our home looks clean on the surface, it's about as organized as a landfill once you start digging deeper. We just don't have a lot of our things in order.

This mess, Tomarken's accidental death and Kirby Puckett's passing at age 45 last week led The Rockette to say "If something happened to one of us, the other person would be totally screwed." She didn't just mean from losing a soulmate, but that the survivor would also have to sift through thousands of papers just to figure out what the hell was going on. That's not the type of burden you want to put on your spouse during a mourning period.

During this discussion, another uncomfortable topic arose. We had never really told each other about our preferred funeral arrangements should the unthinkable happen. Granted, I'm only 36 and she's only 33, but you just never know. It was a sad, dark, but necessary thing to discuss.

After The Rockette disclosed her "last wishes," I thought it was necessary to lighten the mood for a little while. It's tough for me to see her sad. I've been a goofball my whole life and have always turned to humor to brighten up any moment. I also like giving The Rockette a hard time for fun, so I figured it was time to do some macabre multi-tasking.

Here were my top 10 funeral ideas to try and get The Rockette smiling again...

#10 – Buy an empty lot somewhere and bury me on it. A few years later, remove my headstone and build a new house on my grave, then sell it to some unsuspecting family. This will enable me to go totally Poltergeist on their asses. Only a creepy midget lady telling me to go to the light would cleanse the house of my spirit.

#9 - Plant my body near my scumbag former boss' house and make it look like a clumsy homicide with all evidence pointing directly back at him. Even better, somehow get my body inside the trunk of one of his cars. Then make an “anonymous” tip.

#8 - Do a bottom's up open casket, meaning I want my body to be placed face down. The top part of the casket should be left closed but the bottom half should be open. My pants should be around my ankles, enabling my moon to shine for the open viewing. Anyone who didn't think I was a smart ass in life would get the picture now.

#7 - Have my best friend Spam and some lucky blog reader whisk my corpse off to some tropical isle and then masquerade as if I am still alive ala Weekend at Bernie's. I'm sure it would be much funnier watching Spam and one of my blog readers trying to drag my dead ass around than that movie was.

#6 – Put me in a suitcase and go to the airport. Talk about overpacking! Find someone with an identical bag and switch them. Then buy a ticket for their flight so you can watch them try to stuff me in the overhead compartment.

#5 – How about an Old West theme? First find a funeral home that still sells those old “pine box” coffins. You may have to go to western South Dakota for this, but I assure you it will be well worth it.

Dress me in country western clothes, preferably all in black. Then have a makeup artist fashion a fake bullet hole in my forehead (unless I happen to die in such fashion, then just leave as is). Create wanted posters featuring my face and a “reward” offer.

Then have funeral-goers pose with my standing corpse like they did in the Old West, taking pictures with one of those exploding flashbulb cameras of the era. Serve Tombstone pizza and invite Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, and Sam Elliott.

#4 - Babble some bullshit to Amy Grant how it was always my dream to climb Mount Everest and how you want to make that last wish come true for me. Then find some little Sherpa to try and drag my 335-pound dead ass up the mountain (no yak assistance allowed).

If he actually makes it, by all means, have him pitch my carcass next to the hundreds of oxygen tanks discarded there.

#3 – Donate my body to science. Make sure to film a videotape of my autopsy. My naked body would make more cops faint than the opening of Quincy when that sheet got pulled back in the morgue. Then Quincy would crack over when he sees my liver was bigger than Ruben Studdard.

#2 – Offer me for sale as emergency rations to any survivors from that Chilean soccer team that had co-pilot leftovers for 3 months in the Antilles. I've got way more quality meat, probably 175 pounds field dressed. I’m sure I would have great ribs, a tender rump roast and bitchin' drumsticks.

#1 - Some people are getting cremated into yellow diamonds as a keepsake for loved ones. Imagine the gargantuan rock my wife would have on her finger after my cremation! It would be way bigger than the ring Kobe gave his wife to smooth over that whole rapist thing.