Dying of boredom

Jane, the main embalmer here, is out of town starting today until next Tuesday. She is going fishing, which is funny. I’ve never gone fishing for reasons other than being hungry while backpacking, and so never used a fishing pole. I don’t even really like fish, so the whole fishing thing seems lame, or boring or something. So, she’s all excited about a week of fishing and can’t wait to be wherever it is that she’s going. So, that means I’ll be embalming more than usual this week, and meeting with (hopefully) less families. I never like being the director that meets with a family and the embalmer for their deceased relative, mostly because I tend to feel like that is creepy for the family. I mean, my name is listed on the death certificate of anyone I embalm, and for some reason I think that families don’t really want to know the person that did the embalming. I suppose that its weird for me to think that, I mean, the general public doesn’t actually know what embalming really is, so they probably don’t pay much attention to the name listed on the death certificate.

Monica, the new girl, says she’ll help me out in the prep room, and I told her to bring some tennis shoes to keep here at work (it sucks to have to embalm in four inch heels, even if it is sexier), and that I would make her a cute apron. Back when I started at this mortuary I made myself a kick-ass apron out of oil cloth (that stuff that plastic tablecloths are made out of, with the fuzzy backing) that I wear in the prep room. The fabric store had a lot of different patterns of oil cloth and I chose a black and white toile pattern, and plain red accents (pockets, straps and edging). It probably isn’t quite OSHA compliant, but it works for me, and is definitely cuter than the space suit crap the funeral home buys. And the pockets are wonderful.

We are really slow right now, almost painfully so. It’s a funny thing to wish that we were busier, especially since that would mean death for people, but I can’t help it. I spent the morning organizing the prep room and the makeup cart, and am thinking about going to Target (love that place) to stock up on a few “normal” makeup products, as well as a few other supplies that I use during restoration. Hopefully I can leave soon…