Funerals make me giggle. Perhaps this is just an Inappropriate Emotional Response (IER) or due to my having "different" views on death than most people. Either way, I find myself laughing my way through them.
An FB friend of mine from DC that I had not yet had the chance to meet in person invited me to Marvin Hamlisch's funeral yesterday. She is in the city for a month, and her mother has become a sweet presence in my life. I walked to the Temple as it was not far from my apartment, and was greeted at the door with a lyric sheet for "What I Did For Love." The pleasant woman who handed it to me said, "We will be singing for Marvin today." This was the last nicety I was to be offered by anyone associated with Temple Emanu-El. I then found Lauren immediately in her seat, and sat down next to her in the pew near the back of the large room.
I had my phone out (as did many others) to check Lauren and myself in at the Temple for this event, and had been sitting and chatting with her for less than a minute when the absurdity began. My FB app had barely opened when a Harpy from Hell with dyed red hair and a hateful tone descended upon me. "I want that phone turned off," she spat at me from between her dentures.
"Sure," I replied as I hastily searched to turn the ringer off.
"And I want it put away," she acidly added as she continued to stump up the aisle. I had no idea who this woman was. Was she the event coordiator? An usher with a vendetta? A woman of "God?" Just some random aisle-wandering bitch?
Now, mind you that the funeral was not starting for another half hour at this point. I slipped my now sure-to-be-silent phone into my pocket, and glanced around at all the other glowing screens around me. We had not been given any program or directives, nor were there any anti-cell phone signs lingering about. Why had I been singled out by this Shrew? Why was she so nasty? I would have gladly complied with her wishes without all of her bile-spewing.
About 5 minutes before the ceremony started, she made another pass. By this time the area around us had filled in almost completely. Lauren had regaled me with stories about the Wake she had attended the previous evening, and we had started to get to know one another.
"Put your cell-phone away, sir, and stop taking pictures! Use some discretion," we heard The Hag nearly screech from behind us. The man bumbled his apologies as she turned across the aisle to yell at another woman, "Put that away!"
Thankfully the service started, and we were spared any more cell-phone shamings for the rest of the ceremony. There was an awful moment when a cell-phone started ringing during one of the speeches. I am honestly surprised The Creature's head did not explode off of her body at that point! I did watch her flit from seat to seat along the edge of the room, however, shooting nasty glances at people who dared whisper or fidget. There was a gentleman who had brought two young and disruptive girls with him that sat right in front of us. If The Crone could have shot them dead with laser-darts from her eyes, they most certainly would have met their own demise this day.
Now. The problem with having a service with no bulletin for the audience is... the crowd has no idea what is expected of them. About 5 minutes into the program after the welcome, a large portion of the audience on both sides of the room stood up. Confused, we commoners in the back followed suit.
"Are we doing the wave?" Lauren asked as the standing reached us from the front. As we sat back down again almost immediately after standing as the sitting reached us, I replied, "I think we just did." This started me in fits of giggling. As the Chorus sang "The Way We Were," I tried desperately to stifle my laughter. As Lauren stated, we had just done the wave without arms. At a funeral.
The rest of the funeral was very reverent. Except for those young girls that I mentioned a few paragraphs earlier. Clearly the younger of the two was more interested in putting on her own show than being at a funeral for someone she didn't know. She did all the things that an undisciplined child will do in situations such as these; She fought with her sister, made noises with her lyric sheet until her dad took it away, screamed "Ow!" as often as possible, laid down in the pew, made noises with her shoes, asked why there wasn't more singing, clapped inappropriately, and had a staring contest with me which I ended by winking at her and then ignoring her. Yep. This is why I won't have kids. I don't want to be that guy that all the other adults sit around wondering whatever possessed him to bring his unruly spawn out in public. Plus shake-a-baby, but I digress.
Bill Clinton and others spoke, Idina Menzel sang (I happen to think "At the Ballet" was a WEIRD choice,) and I made irreverent remarks to Lauren under my breath so as not to alert the sensibilities of The Devil Incarnate who was always lurking nearby.
My next giggle fit started when the pall-bearers went to pick up the coffin. I really don't understand the desire to design elaborate and HEAVY boxes in which to put a decomposing body. Once that ornately carved box is underground, it is only going to decay. I could go on and on here. Don't even get me started on concrete mausoleums! But, I was talking about giggling.
So this heavy box was lifted (Marvin was not a small man,) and carried down the steps from the [altar?] (I honestly don't know what they call it in the Temple, but all I have as a reference are the Xtian terms for things in churches.) The men in front bore the heaviest part of the load, which caused them to walk quickly down the stairs. As we all know from being on the end of a crack-the-whip situation, this caused the men on the other end to almost have to run down the steps without losing their footing. As I watched this happen, images of a runaway casket began to play in my mind causing another round of laughter stifling. For some odd reason, they then hoisted the casket to their shoulders to carry it down the aisle, and then had to drop it again once they reached the back of the [sanctuary?] so they could get it out the door. Luckily all of this happened without having a jack-in-the-box corpse-surprise ending to the service.
Lastly came the parade of mourners led by his wife Terre. She had gotten through her dedication almost flawlessly, but by this time was sobbing uncontrollably. Friends and family followed quickly, causing Lauren to exclaim, "Liza's walking so fast!" Not fair, Lauren!
We were pretty hungry after all this hilarity, so we then went to celebrate our new friendship over margaritas at Arriba! Arriba! A perfect ending to the day. R.I.P Marvin Hamlisch. There is no doubt that you made quite an impact on this world during your time here.
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