Putting the "Era" in "Funeral"...

...Because using "Fun" would just be too cliched. And inappropriate, and you know how I like to shy away from that material.

We didn't drop my grandma, though we did come close. Perhaps we owe thanks to the phantom pallbearer. Just before the standard six of us prepared to lift the coffin, an elderly person appeared to assist, leaving us with an uneven seven bearers. My cousins mouthed, "Who is this?" but none of us knew, except perhaps the stranger emself. Later we learned ey was a former friend of my grandpa's and volunteered eir services to no one in particular at the last minute.

Many of my parents friends showed up at the funeral unannounced. Though it was an extremely nice gesture, I don't understand the notion of surprise funeral attendance. "Guess who showed up to your mother's funeral!" Granted, it's not as strange as the surprise pallbearer, but strange nevertheless. The only surprise that I would consider acceptable at a funeral is if the deceased were to jump out of the coffin and announce that it was all a joke. My grandma didn't do that, by the way, just in case that needed any clarification.

I do not like the priest that led the service. With stilted speech and a bland personality, he lacks all of the passion of Christ. He's the kind of priest you didn't have to worry about during the Catholic molestation scandal, because he lacks so much game that he couldn't even land an eight-year-old if he tried.

I wasn't raised Catholic; I've never taken Communion previously. At this funeral, I fully intended to abstain from the ceremony again, but being the first in the front row, I found myself peer pressured into receiving Communion. After walking up, the priest placed a wafer in my hand while hissing, "The body of Christ!" About to pop Jesus' bod in my mouth, I headed back toward my seat, only to be pushed in the opposite direction because apparently we're supposed to return to the pew a different way. Flustered, I still had the wafer in my palm as I turned to head in the correct direction when the priest grabbed me firmly by the wrist and said, "The Host goes in your mouth, son." This statement was no friendly reminder, but an angry cry where he might as well have screamed, "Heathen!" I quickly ate it. (In case you were wondering, Jesus tastes like cardboard and I do not plan on becoming a cannibal anytime soon.) Walking back in the correct direction, I whispered to my cousin, "I just fucked up in church." My usually foul-mouthed cousin gave me a surprised glare. Nervous, I sputtered, "I just said 'fuck' in church." Oops, that was twice.

At the reception afterward, I avoided the priest like the plague. Or perhaps a prepubescent boy. As I told my relatives that "the Father and I were not speaking," people told me that I was exaggerating the situation. Then my mom confirmed that when she went to get her wafer, he almost gave her one before taking it back and fishing back through the dish until he found a broken one to give her. Ouch! Since we were seated in the first row, he could probably tell we were not Catholic from our lacking of cross formations and memorized prayers. And you know what, I can kind of respect the maltreatment. To be a good priest, you should probably sincerely believe that all non-Catholics are going to hell. Otherwise, what's the point? Speaking of a point, I should probably wrap up this rambling with a nice conclusion. I can't figure out how to do that, though, so I'm going to ask for your forgiveness after playing the sympathy card and reminding you that my grandma died.

(Cheers to you, Rose.)