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Our friend, Queefrobber asked for more stories about working in mortuaries for 22 years. Parts of this may be reposts from stories that vanished or still in MY FAVORITES.

People would ask: "Isn't it dangerous working at nights in a mortuary, with all those dead bodies laying around?" My answer was always the same: "The dead ones can't assault you, try to rip you off or sue you." The live relatives can do all of the above and much more.

I have had families try to quick change me with cash, try to hand me bad checks (especially if the body was shipping to Mexico) or use a bad credit card.

I was threatened with law suits on an infrequent basis. "Mom doesn't look like her picture, we're suing." "The photo you gave us was taken in the mid to late 40's." "Your mother was 87 when she died." "We can't make her look 40 years younger." "'Ol Buck looks like shit...we ain't paying." "Well, Buck put his head into a concrete cistern doing 90 mph. you are fortunate we had enough of his head left to spend 5 hours rebuilding it." "Why does Uncle Fred smell bad?" "To save money, like you said when we were making arrangements, you decided NOT to embalm him and STILL have an open casket viewing." "Your Uncle is decomposing in that casket, despite our warnings about his appearance."

When families did stupid stuff, like cops, we always got the blame. "Why you started the funeral without us?" "Because the Priest has other things to do today and after 45 minutes, he told us to start." "Why you give us a $500 bill for clean up?" "Because your friends and family trashed the entire building." "They destroyed three toilets, stole everything they could pick up and carved their initials in everything they couldn't lift...that's why." I watched a family beat the shit out of one of their brothers for writing us a bad check, after taking cash from his brothers and sisters.

Numerous times, I have watched Hispanic families engage in brawls at funerals and gravesides. A widow and current girlfriend fought over a burial flag for an active duty LAPD officer. Drunks and drunken relatives would show up and duke it out over long simmering feuds. A son of the deceased abandon the family 20 years before and threatened my staff because Mom didn't look right. He hadn't seen his mother in 25 years.

I was doing something when my receptionist called me in my office in a full panic. An ex-husband showed up for the viewing of his ex wife. Right in front of the current husband and other family members, he started taking the top off of the deceased and produced a syringe apparently full of "meat tenderizer" and water. The woman had died of breast cancer and had a few large nodules on her breast. He was screaming that if he could give her the shot, the cancer would dissolve and she would be cured (and alive again). Myself and two family members wrestled the syringe away and fought the ex out into the parking lot.

During a funeral for a grandmother, a limo pulled up nearly on the mortuary front porch. A very high and/or drunk idiot dove out of the limo screaming "MOMA DOGGIES" as loud as I have ever heard a human scream at a funeral. He kept screaming and ran up to the casket and nearly yanked grannie out of her resting place. Family held him down until the minister finished the service and people started to get into their cars to head to the graveside. The idiot jumps up and makes another dive for the casket, screaming "MOMA DOGGIES" at full volume. I walked up to him and told him that everyone was in their cars and ready to go to the gravesite. This fool pulls a huge wad of cash out of his pocket and threw it in my face! His limo driver jumped between us because I intended to bust this loudmouthed druggie in the face. With no one else around but the driver I said "Listen motherfucker, we've called the cops on your stupid ass and you'd better be gone when they get here." They both ran out to the limo like Moma Doggies was chasing them with a wooden spoon. Two weeks later a relative showed up to get copies of the death certificate we had to order from the health department. "What happened to your crazy relative with the limo?" "Oh, he was shot to death a week ago during a drug deal.." "Gee, what a shame."

We had a guy that had two families. The widows found out about each other at the viewing and were not happy. Hispanics love soap operas and imitate soap actors at funerals. There is always what we now refer to as an attention whore at these funerals, trying to out do other candidates for the honor. Both women were yelling to the crowd at the graveside that the deceased loved them more... At the insistence of the family, the cemetery crew started lowering the casket into a double depth grave (cut deeper to accommodate two burials.) One of the grieving widows dove on top of the casket and rode it to the bottom of the grave. There was a few moments of stunned silence, then from down below: "Geeeeeeeet meeeeeee out of deeeeees hole." Juanita won the coveted best mourner award. While the cemetery crew ran for a ladder, the other guy and I debated who was going to get their limo all filthy because of her stupid ass.

If you want to throw money in my face or try to earn an award or have interests on topics related to mortuaries, coroner, police or executive protection.. Toss it into my in box. CR