Practical Jokes: Undertakers

Sometime in his youth, not sure if it was before or after the Navy, my Dad worked for his friend’s family at the family funeral home.  I don’t know much about what my Dad did there but I can tell you that, as a young woman, I was not allowed to wear mauve because “that’s what old ladies are buried in.” Not wearing mauve would not seem like much of an inconvenience but, let’s remember, I came of age in the 1980s. When Mauve Was King.  Maybe that's what started me wearing so much black...

Mr. Dicken, my Dad’s friend, was a nice man.  He also looked exactly the way you would want an undertaker to look.  I can’t imagine any other profession for him—he seemed to be genetically predisposed for the profession.

So keep that image in your head, of a quietly dapper, tastefully bald older gentleman, and imagine such a man:

·         Standing in front of my Dad’s car thru three green lights once he realized he was walking in front of my Dad’s car at a crosswalk.

·         Throwing sugar packets across a Friendly’s Ice Cream Shop, trying to land one in my Dad’s cup of coffee.

·         Having the following conversation in a very busy Doctor’s Office waiting room:

       DAD: Harold! What brings you here?

MR.D: My foot’s bothering me.

DAD: What’s wrong with it?

MR.D: Don’t know.

DAD: You wash it?

MR.D: Do I what?

DAD: Do you wash it?

MR.D: [thoughtfully] Well, no.  I guess I don’t.

DAD: That’s your problem, Harold. 

MR.D: Ya think?

DAD: YES! Go home and wash it and you’ll see I’m right.

MR.D:  By golly, Jack! I think I will! [gets up and walks out of waiting room.]

 Aaaaand: Scene!  Geriatric performance art, people, geriatric performance art.