Can you be over-prepared?

over-prepared listmakingNo one will ever mistake me for the most organized person in the world. I strive to be prepared, but I doubt I’ll ever make it to “over-prepared.”

Certainly not to the degree of one couple around here. (And yes, “around here” means the cemetery in the midst of which I’m living this month.)

I’ve grown used to seeing gravestones with room for another name or two. Sometimes, for instance, they’ll go ahead and engrave the wife’s name when only the husband has died. I guess they figure it’s a pretty good bet she’ll end up there eventually. On those stones, you’ll see hubby’s name with dates of birth and death and the wife’s name and birth date. That’s preparation.

And then there’s over-preparation. One gravestone here features husband’s and wife’s names and dates of birth. But no second dates.

In the immortal words of Monty Python, they’re

Not Dead Yet.

The plan ahead-stone

Now, I know people pre-plan their funerals. They pre-pay for the services, pick out their burial plot. It takes some of the responsibility off the shoulders of their grieving families. Nice.

I can see picking out a gravestone—voicing your opinions on material, design, font. Surely someone has come up with the wedding registry equivalent for funerals. (If not, a free business idea for you, readers.)

But erecting and engraving your own headstone seems a tad much to me. Are they over-prepared or just overly controlling?

Then again, with some of the gravestones I’ve seen around here, folks might be wise to take things into their own hands…while they still have hands.

I’ve written about graveside decor (soon to be a Martha Stewart magazine, no doubt)—but that’s stuff added to the plot. Some of the more modern stones carry their own decorations. Supposed to be whimsical, I guess.

One features a traditional front—name, dates, etc. But the back of the stone shows  a kitten pawing a ball of yarn on the left corner facing off against…Snoopy as the World War I flying ace on the right corner. The sizes are way off: Kitty looks like Godzilla compared to poor Snoopy. If someone slapped “art” like that on my gravestone, I’d haunt them forever. And report them to the copyright office, too.

Is there a Story Safari™ in this?

Probably. It could be about taking too much control vs. letting things take their course. It could be a about the dangers of giving the wrong people room to exercise their own creativity. It could be about having so many different points of view that none of them makes sense—Godzilla Kitty about to defeat Snoopy’s flying doghouse by rolling a giant ball of yarn into it.

Bonus Story

I saw a pizza stone today.

No, not a stone you put in your oven to make the crust turn crispy. A gravestone with the family name on it: Pizza. It was rectangular, not round; I guess they’re Sicilian.

I can only wonder what travails Mr. & Mrs. P. endured during their lives. For instance, imagine this conversation:

“I’d like to order a large pepperoni pie to go.”

“Sure, sir. What’s the name?”

“Pizza.”

“Yes, a pepperoni pizza. What name should I put that under?”

[and…you get the idea]

  • creativity
  • storytelling