Goin' Out In Style

I'm taking a fiction writing class, and though I love the class, it's making me want to scream. It's not that I can't tell a good story. It's not that I can't bullshit on just about anything and make people believe that I know what I'm talking about. It's just that I have to have some prompting. There's no fictional nugget dying to get out of my head right now. I suppose I could tell myself, I'm going to write a story about a boy who falls in love with his imaginary friend then gets institutionalized when his mom walks in on him and this imaginary friend in the throws of passion, because to her, it just looks like little Billy is humping the air. I could do that, but I'm not compelled to do that. I did have this one sentence that popped into my head as I was trying and failing to fall asleep last night. The sentence was, "dead is a strange way to describe your best friend." It's not brilliant. It's probably not even good, but I got to thinking about a character dealing with the sudden death of his best friend, and what that would be like. So, I'm sitting down to start writing, at this point any words on the page would feel like a victory, and I go to describe the casket only to realize that I have no idea what caskets are made of. I do the old blackle.com search for caskets, and stumble upon the most wonderful shit I have ever seen. If you'd like to check it out for yourself, here's the link http://www.casketstore.net/Special_Caskets.htm . You know how sometimes you'll be driving down the highway, and you'll come up to a van, and the whole rear windshield is some graphic of the Crucifixion? Or the American flag being raised at Iwo Jima? Or Sponge Bob? Well, that seems to be what they've done with these caskets. Friends, for the low, low price of $2863, you too can be buried in a steel box with the Last Supper Photoshopped onto it. Or a beautiful mountain scene. These, though novel, are not my favorites. My favorites are, "The Last Hole," complete with life-sized golf clubs and the 18th pin in the distance, this is the best way I can think of to honor a golfer; "The Race is Over," in this casket we have a side view of stock cars racing through the checkered flag; then there's my personal favorite, "Return to Sender," this classy casket is made to look like an ordinary package, wrapped in brown paper and held together with string, the words, "return to sender," printed in giant red ink across the lid.

Before I saw this website, I was emphatic about wanting to be cremated. Now I'm not so sure. Perhaps it would be better to go for one of these flashy custom jobs. If anyone asks, I'll take the one with the Simpsons couch, with a picture of me sitting right next to Homer. "Doh!"