Enough to make you turn in your
grave
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
MUMMY mia. I have been reading an article about the offer
of mummification - for the dead person who has everything. A line which has me transfixed is: “The non-profit organisation has mummified several pets but is still waiting for its first human body’’.
I think I speak for everyone when I say: “Non-profit?’’.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall when their charity collectors hit the ‘burbs seeking donations to ensure they can continue mummifying your family and friends.
This mummification idea does go to show that, until now, we haven’t
really been thinking outside the box, if you’ll pardon the pun.
We can put a dog in space and invent cheese-crust pizza and yet when
it comes to death, the most exotic we can do seems to be freezing Walt
Disney (to preserve forever mankind’s finest, um, animal-drawing guy) and
shooting Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s ashes into space (to preserve forever mankind’s finest, um, guy called Gene).
Pfft. Small-scale, my friends. It’s time to think BIG.
I was discussing with a friend the other day how peculiar it was
that the rich and famous haven’t latched onto the idea of building their own pyramids for their passage into the great unknown. I would have thought by now some enterprising Texan rancher brothers, named something like Howie and Chuck, would have cottoned onto this and be leasing off their last 1000 hectares for the project, selling their mini to jumbo-sized pyramid tombs on the web.
Howie and Chuck could offer a nice range of Death-The-Egyptian-Way
packs, which would include a gold face mask, guarantee of your mummified, daddified, (or, for the politically correct, personified) remains in a nice linen (that matches your eyes), and any or all of your household nicknacks thrown in - also beautifully giftwrapped in linen.
This would mean you really can take it with you.
But the big advantage of a package pyramid passing for many of Hollywood’s who’s who would be in not having to waste money on the usual mummifying resins, given the copious quantities of preserving cocktails many will have swigged, ingested and snorted throughout their stressful careers. They’d naturally be eligible for an “Already Pickled’’
discount.
And certain dead screen darlings - their silicon implants still
standing tall, their nipped and tucked faces stretched like fine leather -
would actually be impossible to tell from the live version, many years
hence. Indeed, their two fondest wishes would be granted: Immortality and staying forever young.
But immortality doesn’t come cheap, so one should probably start
saving now for Chuck and Howie’s shop-’til-you-drop offers.
Just don’t go getting any bright ideas of setting this up here: Pyramid schemes are illegal in Australia.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 11 July
2000.