bitches will pay

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Current mood: accomplished

so i'm working this wake on friday night and this woman trips on the step ( notice the singular "step" not "stepS") coming into the funeral home. she's kinda old, maybe sixty-ish, and she fell flat on her face. so i bring her an icepak, tell her to sit for a while, ask if she'd like a drink (of water). a few minutes later, she tells me she's really feeling bad, she'd like an ambulence. so as the sole employee working at the funeral home, i call her an ambulence. while in the office, i also call my supervisor, who is clearly drunk (it being friday night, i certainly don't blame him) and tells me not to worry about it, this is what insurance is for... it'll be fine.

the thing is though, that a similar incidence happened with the same two-inch-high step in the fall and that elderly woman sued the shit out of us even though she had no injuries- and she got a shitload of money. and i hear she's currently on a cruise with kathee lee. and i made that last part up, but it's proabably true.
so anyway, when i get back out to the parlour ( from the office) approximately fifteen firemen are standing around chatting while some poor family is trying to have a wake for their dead relative. when i ask if maybe we don't need two firetrucks and an amubulence? the rather testy meathead lead fireman says to me, "ma'am, you called in an accicident. we are trying to respond to the accident you reported. please let us." so i did. even though he called me ma'am.

the old woman is also obviously a terrible fake. she has no visible injuires, her only problem is faulty memory apparently; "where am i ?" "what happened?" "Why does my face hurt so bad?" i honesty haven't seen such bad acting since...well never, i avoid bad acting. i really think it's going around the old lady circuit that if you trip at Drake funeral home, you get a shitload of money. it's only a matter of time before old women are falling down all over the joint. i'd have to push them aside to get in. not that i blame them... i'd sell my freaking soul to be on a freakin cruise right now.

anyway, so i have irate firefighters, irate mourning people, and an old woman on the floor. then i hear the prep room door open, followed by a scream of sobbing terror. apparently, in the confusion, one of the attendees of the wake had wandered back into the part of the funeral home where we prep dead bodies. you see, my boss, in his infinate wisdom recently decided that our guests, who often bring rather elaborate meals to serve in the lounge during their wakes and funerals, have no need of a refridgerator down there, so he tossed it. so now i am regularly asked to store and fetch various food items from the emplyee fridge ( in back) for my families. since i looked so busy, the gentleman and his wife decided not to trouble me and ask for their food, but to ignore the numerous signs asking that they do not enter the prep room, and they entered it anyway. it wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't just that afternoon gotten in a rather messy auto-accident victim who was currently in full view on the slab. they will probably sue for mental anguish and my lack of regard for their sensitivities to bloody dead bodies.

then, after the ambulence loads up the old woman/actress, it promptly proceeds to crash into our carport on the side of the building causing severe structural damage. they claimed they did not know how low the roof on the car port was, they thought they could fit under it. they told me we should have a sign posted listing the height, like they put on underpasses . they will probably sue us for damage to their ambulence and their own stress at the incidence.

the family, conducting a wake while all this is going on, is furious. it is loud, and pretty disrespectful to have people screaming, falling, and crashing while they are trying to mourn their loved one. they will probabaly sue me, for blatent disregard of their feelings and grief. i don't blame them. they payed $15,000 for a funeral come circus act.


so, total number of lawsuits racked up in three hours = 4.
total number of police reports= 2


and i gave up drinking.


i read this article recently that advised against blogging about work if you're currently employed under a corporation; but, honestly, i'm worried that one day i'll look back on my job at the funeral home and convince myself that i made most of it all up; that my own lies and exagerations have clouded the actual facts. no one actually has a life like this, this is a sitcom i saw once.



Currently reading:
My Friend Leonard
By James Frey
Release date: June, 2005