A couple years ago, I used to frequent a coffee shop where one of the other regular patrons was a guy in mortuary school. He would always be reading this embalming textbooks and similar. I was completely fascinated by him. I mean, what kind of life do you lead to get to the point where you think "ok, mortician, I think that's what I'll do." Multiple times, I contemplated asking him out, but I never got up the guts.
I never got up the guts
And therefore failed out of mortician school.
It's probably interesting work, you get to meet lots of people, spruce up the corpses … why not?
Also, the cover of that calendar has the line "go and dig my grave both deep and wide" running through my head.
wonder if it'll outsell this one: http://www.calendarioromano.org/
go and dig my grave both deep and wide
That's kind of what I was thinking.
Being a mortician wouldn't be so bad, except that you'd constantly be dealing with grieving people, which seems like it would get depressing pretty quickly.
I think part of the draw is that you get to help people in their time of need.
That's why I go for strictly amateur embalming. Just find a likely candidate, clock him one over the head, and see what can be seen.
Granted one has occasionally to deal with the police, but they're usually more courteous than those fucking bereaved.
those fucking bereaved
Ben is coaxing the emotionally vulnerable into bed. HE MUST BE STOPPED!
Third guy from the right looks like a cartoon. Not hott.
Some years ago I had a job on a popular premium cable television series about a family who operated a funeral home (yeah that one). We had these real morticians, a married couple, who worked on the show as consultants, and they had some of the driest, sharpest senses of humor I've ever encountered. I have to think that working with dead bodies just forces you to become hilarious -- how else would you cope?
Dunno about over there, but here undertakers seem to make pretty good money, so there's one motivation.
Would love to see the rest of that calendar.
how else would you cope?
Necrophilia.
Before med school, Dr. Oops had a job as a diener -- an untrained autopsy assistant. The pathologist doesn't do all that much of the actual cutting in an autopsy: some dropout named Igor is doing the slicing under the doctor's supervision. She said she used to really enjoy dimming the lights, putting some Shostakovich on the stereo, and sitting in obscure corners of the autopsy room sharpening knives and whistling tunelessly to herself as she waited for nervous young interns to wander in on some errand.
So there's entertainment to be had in playing with dead bodies.
I want to shake your sister's hand. That's awesome.
She really is. Also, apparently, human abdominal fat, infiltrated with blood vessels? A surprisingly strong resemblance to cherry-cheese danish filling.
Based on my wife's forensic pathology textbook photos, I'd buy 20 in a minute.
I guess I should say "the photos in the forensic pathology textbook." They aren't of her, or anything.
Lord, this brings to mind Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One. [I still find it bizarre that people get married at Forest Lawn. But I find much of Southern California bizarre.]
I note that it doesn't say they are morticians - just "Men of Mortuaries™" [And it's spelt wrong on the website.] Given that they are holding shovels, perhaps they are gravediggers. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers.
"it was only a matter of time before the Men of Mortuaries calendar came to fruition"
Eventually someone was going to capitalize on "Six Feet Under"
Linda at Sundry Mourning has a brother-in-law who's a mortician. She tagged along on an embalming over Christmas and wrote about it here.
I've always been curious about Joe's job, and I like to pester him with questions at family get-togethers, mostly when his parents aren't within earshot and I can ask awful things like, "Sooo...have you ever had to put a head back on?" (answer: yes, from a suicide who used piano wire to hang himself with, and Joe had to put a broomstick in the neck to re-attach the head).
Uh, holy shit.
There's a great family photo of my grandfather in med school standing with a bunch of other young men around a table with a white tablecloth. Only when you look carefully and see feet hanging off the end of the table do you realize they're not at a dinner party.
Just because there was a body, that doesn't mean it wasn't a dinner party. Havne't you seen Rope?
The mortician who did my father was also a trophy hunter and taxidermist. After the viewing he took us around the corner to see his trophy bighorn sheep, etc. I immediately wondered why we hadn't ordered that kind of job, and how much it would have cost. His hounds lived in an upstairs bedroom and when as we came and went they watched us from the roof with their tongues hanging out .
maybe if your father had had a better rack.
31 is really an excellent comment.