Epitaphs To Die For

Pam: My Aunt and I visited that Funeral Museum in Houston. It sounds creepy but it was actually really well done. When I heard about it, I imagined some sort of weird, dark, roadside tin shack. But it was a nice building with marble floors and classrooms for mortician school lectures and everything.

Ann: Hold on…I’m still back at Funeral Museum! You’re kidding right?

Pam: No. There really is such a place and it’s surprisingly interesting and educational. They have all these gorgeous ebony, horse-drawn funeral carriages and lots and lots of displays with historical documents from the funerals of famous people.

Ann: What on earth would possess you two to go to a Funeral Museum?

Pam: Curiosity mostly….and the ever present quest for great conversation starters.

Ann: Or stoppers!

Pam: Oh come on. Admit it, you’re a little curious. They had an amazing collection of unusual tombstones.

Ann: Unusual shapes or unusual epitaphs?

Pam: Both.

Ann: I doubt the ones they have could top the ones I’ve seen in real life. There was one that said, “Here lies an atheist…all dressed up and no place to go!”

Pam: I saw one just outside Savannah, Georgia that said, “Only the good die young”.

Ann: That’s not so unusual. In fact, it’s kind of sweet.

Pam: It would be, but the guy was ninety-seven when he died.

Ann: There must be quite a story there.

I read a book a long time ago and I barely remember the plot. But a middle-aged woman was having a midlife crisis and was contemplating her own epitaph. She wanted, “The nut is gone, the shell remains.” I’ve always loved that one…

Pam: Loved? Okay, you’ve got to go to the Funeral Museum! They have books in the gift shop filled with unusual epitaphs.

Ann: Now I know you’re kidding. A gift shop?

Pam: Of course, it is a museum after all. I bought Bret a souvenir t-shirt that says, “In dog years I’m dead”. And I bought myself a fridge magnet that says, “The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth”.

Ann: Get me a ladder quick!