Would you like the premium casket?

Did anybody watch "Six Feet Under?" Personally, I think it's quite possibly the most brilliant television show ever produced. It certainly poked fun at life and death, but it also illuminated the prostitution that is ever-present in the business of funerals, memorials, burials, embalming and cremation. Until recently, I've never experienced it first hand.....but let me tell you....the world's oldest profession is alive and well inside the walls of your local funeral home. The first thing that the funeral director said to me was, "have you been to our facility....and would you like a tour?" Who wants to tour a funeral home? After politely declining the tour, I was quickly escorted to a conference room that was flanked with death options and trendy urns, including some that were engraved with the state's college football teams. REALLY? Once the funeral director got past the obligatory condolences he marched forward with his script, which I'm sure was full of "add-ons" that would make everything really special for my loved one....unfortunately I cut him off at the knees when I told him there would be no burial, no service and no designer urn. With all of that said, I have to give him credit: he read the cues and he "closed the sale" without too much street walking. It's one thing to be a whore in a traditional corporate, for profit environment that produces a product, a television show or a service. But to tap into someone's loss for a company's gain is just about the worst kind of trick you can turn. Whores, you gotta draw the line somewhere...