Green Soot

I have barely dipped my toe into my 60th decade, yet I keep getting junk mail from the Hey-Old-Person-You-Are-Probably-Going-To-Drop-Dead-Soon crowd. I am constantly receiving life insurance forms, which is really annoying. Is the entire cosmos in the loop on my impending doom? Seriously, let me in on the secret. Some of these life insurance solicitations come dressed up with “Urgent!” or “Open Immediately”. I haven’t noticed a hooded guy with a big scythe hanging out by my front door, but still... Kind of makes we wonder. Yesterday, I found that my junk mail has been bumped up to the next level. I received something from a company called Smart Cremation. The outside of the envelope had my name, address and return address printed in a font that looked like someone’s handwriting. I wasn’t fooled (I still got it, baby!). Inside was a one-page flyer. There was a flow chart showing that cremation costs $1,898 as opposed to the average funeral cost of $7,075. It listed five reasons for choosing cremation - It’s significantly cheaper, simpler, time is flexible, it puts me in control (huh?), and is “enviro-friendly”. That last point is interesting. What makes ashes green? Seems to me it’s just more soot in the air, especially if I want to be scattered in the wind (the jury is still out on that one). The flyer provided a toll free phone number where I could order a book entitled “All You Need To Know About Cremation Today”. On the cover is a photo of a man and woman walking into a forest. Is it a scary forest? Are there wolves or roving bands of demented squirrels in this forest? Is this the before picture of them, before they needed Smart Cremation’s services? The description of this book says “I want more information regarding my veterans benefits”. So, here again, I’m in the dark. In addition to possibly being on my deathbed, I seem to have forgotten my military service. Did I forget I used to fly the Stealth Bomber? I don’t have a uniform laying around, but perhaps it’s at the dry cleaner. Maybe the dude with the scythe knows...