Lady Justice And Dr. Death by Robert Thornhill

Author:Robert Thornhill [Thornhill, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

It had been a long day and I was looking forward to getting home to Maggie to enjoy what was left of the evening.

I had just finished with the plate that Maggie had kept warm for me in the oven, when I heard a knock on the door.

Oh great! What now? I thought.

I opened the door and looked into the faces of my five tenants.

Just what I needed.

“And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” I asked.

“Do you still have those DNR things we gave you?” Dad asked. “You know, where we gave you permission to pull our plugs?”

“Sure,” I said. “They’re in my file cabinet.”

“Could you get them? We want to add some stuff.”

“Really? What kind of stuff?”

Just then, Maggie came up behind me.

“For heaven’s sake, Walt. Don’t make them stand out in the hall. Invite them in.”

“But it’s getting late,” I protested.

“Yeah, I know it’s late,” Dad said, “but this is important, Sonny.”

After we were all seated in the living room, I said, “OK, what’s so urgent?”

“Well,” Dad replied, “none of us are spring chickens. And with all this death stuff that’s been going on and with old Mort over at the hotel --- well, we thought we should do some planning. You know, just in case one of us is next.”

“What kind of planning?”

“Walt, you’re my next of kin. What are you going to do with me when I croak?”

“I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“SEE! We need to figure this stuff out.”

“We’ve been doing some research,” Jerry said, “about how different cultures deal with their old folks.

“We read about how the Eskimos set their old people adrift on icebergs and how some tribes light a big funeral pyre.”

“Well first, we’re a little short on icebergs here in midtown and second, Kansas City has a no-burning ordinance, so I think we can rule out those two possibilities.”

“That wasn’t the point,” Dad said. “You obviously haven’t given much thought as to how you’re going to dispose of my remains.”

“No, I’ll have to admit that hasn’t been at the top of my to-do list.”

“We’ve done some checking,” the Professor said, “and it would seem that our two most viable options are cremation and burial.”

“I just don’t know if I could stand being buried,” Bernice said. “Just thinking about being put in a box and buried in the ground with all those worms and bugs and crawly things. It gives me the creeps.”

“Now Bernice,” Dad said, “we’ve been over this. They don’t just dig a hole and toss you in. You’re placed in a casket, and the casket is put in a vault. No worms --- no bugs.”

“Well that’s better, but all that dirt on top of me --- I just don’t know.”

“Another consideration,” the Professor said, “is the cost. A modest casket, a vault and opening the grave would run about eight thousand. By comparison, cremation and a nice urn would run about fifteen hundred.”

“Plus, you have to buy a burial plot and a headstone,” Jerry said.

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