If you keep tabs on pop culture, you’ve heard that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian had a baby.  Congratulations, Kimye.  I hope that your love for your little girl forces you both into an early retirement.

Either of their names — but especially Kanye’s — raises my blood pressure and puts me into a bad mood.  ”Why?” you ask.  Because I don’t like them (especially Kanye).  There’s a number of people I don’t like … Newt Gingrich, Justin Bieber, Alex Rodriguez, Bashar al-Assad and Rush Limbaugh make my list, but for me, Kanye is today’s incarnation of Narcissus.

After Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV MVAs, Barack Obama responded by saying that Kanye West is a “jackass.”  When the President of the United States and the leader of the free world takes time out of his very important day, and — instead of spending that moment deciding about the future of America, or the future of the earth — decides to comment on a trivial pop star, you know that said popstar is worth the title of “jackass.”  To further solidify his position on Kanye West, Obama again reiterated in 2012 that although Kanye is indeed talented, he remains a jackass.

Let me be clear: when I say, “I don’t like Kanye West”, it doesn’t mean much.  But when the leader of the free world twice takes time out of his day to call Kanye a “jackass”, there must be a general sentiment in the populace.

In fact, I’ll go as far to say that Kanye is killing me.

Now to give credence to my assertion that Kanye West is killing me, we need to look at a concept called “micromort”.

This from Wikipedia:

Definition of a Micromort

A micromort is a unit of risk measuring a one-in-a-million probability of death (from micro- and mortality). Micromorts can be used to measure riskiness of various day-to-day activities.

How a Micromort is Calculated

The average risk of dying per day can be calculated from the average lifetime. Assuming this is 70 years, that means there is one death for every 25,550 days lived (70 × 365 = 25,550).

The number of micromorts per day is one million divided by that number of days; in this case, about 39 micromorts acquired individually every day. The number of micromorts per day is divided by 24 hours; that is about 1.63 micromorts per hour. This is just an average across an entire population: the number of micromorts per day will vary across different categories of people, such as by age, sex and lifestyle.

Here’s Where it Get’s Fun

Activities that increase the death risk by one micromort, and their associated cause of death:

• Smoking 1.4 cigarettes (cancer, heart disease)^{[5][unreliable source?]}
• Drinking 0.5 liter of wine (cirrhosis of the liver)^[5]
• Spending 1 hour in a coal mine (black lung disease)^[5]
• Spending 3 hours in a coal mine (accident)^[5]
• Living 2 days in New York or Boston (air pollution)^[5]
• Living 2 months with a smoker (cancer, heart disease)^[5]
• Drinking Miami water for 1 year (cancer from chloroform)^[5]
• Eating 100 charcoal-broiled steaks (cancer from benzopyrene)^[5]
• Eating 40 tablespoons of peanut butter (liver cancer from Aflatoxin B)^[5]
• Eating 1000 bananas, (cancer from radioactive 1 kBED of Potassium-40)^{[citation needed]}
• Travelling 6 minutes by canoe (accident)^[5]
• Travelling 6 miles by motorbike (accident)^[6]
• Travelling 17 miles by walking (accident)^[7]
• Travelling 10 miles^[5] (or 20 miles^[7]) by bicycle (accident)
• Travelling 230 miles (370 km) by car (accident)^[6] (or 250 miles^[7])
• Travelling 6000 miles (9656 km) by train (accident)^[6]
• Flying 1000 miles (1609 km) by jet (accident)^[5]

Increase in death risk for other activities on a per event basis:

• Hang gliding – 8 micromorts per trip^[6]
• Scuba diving – 4.72 micromorts per dive^[8]
• Skydiving (in the US) – 7 micromorts per jump^[9]

And finally, I will add my own: Hearing the name “Kanye West” — 2 micromorts.

Two micromorts, you say, how do you get that number?  Here’s how.

A single micromort typical value is around $50^{[2009 value]}

An application of micromorts is measuring the value that humans place on risk: for example, one can consider the amount of money one would have to pay a person to get him or her to accept a one-in-a-million chance of death (or conversely the amount that someone might be willing to pay to avoid a one-in-a-million chance of death). When put thus, people claim a high number but when inferred from their day-to-day actions (e.g., how much they are willing to pay for safety features on cars) a typical value is around $50 (in 2009).^[2][3]

How did I estimate that hearing Kanye West’s name causes two micromorts to my lifespan?  Because you’d have to pay me $100 to hear “He-who-must-not-be-named”.

Exact science.  Bam.  Thank you scientific method.

Yesterday was National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day.  In fact, I captioned another grumpy cat for the occasion and posted it on my facebook page.

There’s “Middle Name Pride Day” on February 12th; March 18th is both “Awkward Moments Day” and “Forgive Your Mom and Dad Day”; and August 6th is “Hamburger Day”, so why can’t there be “Death Appreciation Day”?

Sure, most countries celebrate a “Festival of the Dead” in which they remember those who have passed away, but why not have a day solely devoted to Death?

I know, you have some questions, such as:

What would we celebrate?

1.) We’d celebrate all of the motivation that death gives the world.

I mean, would you really work so hard for that retirement if you knew you’d live forever?  Would you change your bad habits right now if you knew you had an eternity to attempt to rectify yourself?  Death makes responsible citizens out of most of us.

2.) We’d enjoy and celebrate other great things that Death has given us … like inheritance money.

3.) We’d also take time to be thankful for all the space our forefather’s have left us. How crowded would this globe be if it wasn’t for the Grimm Reaper?  I love my relatives, but living shoulder to shoulder with them for an eternity might get slightly annoying.

4.) And then there’s the great art that Death has given us.  We’d never have Edgar Allen Poe, nor could we imagine the joys of heaven with Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.  And who wouldn’t miss the incredible casket haulers we call “hearses”?  Hearses are moving creativity that never would have been created had Death never moved us.

5.) And chicken … steak … sushi. Seriously, why would you want to live if not for sushi? But, guess what, no death, no sushi.

6.) We’d celebrate the world economy.  No death, no economy.

If you wouldn’t die, would you buy safety features on the car you probably wouldn’t own and that you definitely wouldn’t have insured?

Heck, would cars or planes even exist if we lived forever? You’d just walk to anywhere you wanted to go cause you’d have all the time in the world.

Doctors, maybe preachers, and certainly funeral directors would all be without jobs. Almost everybody would be affected (although I’m sure lawyers would find a way to get work).

7.) And for all the good people Death has taken, we shouldn’t forget it’s also taken some real jerks.  Hitler.  Stalin. Who would want to live forever with those guys? Death has stamped a massive “FAIL” on the forehead of most the world’s dictators. And, it’s killed all the billions and billions of stink bugs that have lost their lives.

Can you imagine a world where death never touched a stink bug? If you can’t imagine it, I can and it’s one that’s very, very stinky.

So, thank God for death. We should probably decide to celebrate it.

Once we pick a date, we can all wear black and celebrate the greatness of death by having picnics in cemeteries, listen to Emo music, watch Zombie movies and top off the day by taking a couple minutes off our lives in homage by smoking cigarettes.

*****

If I’ve missed any of Death’s praises, please lend your voice in the chorus of appreciation.

Do you have any Grumpy Cat lines?

I’ve never heard of hazing practices in the funeral industry (although I’m sure it’s happened).  And, thankfully, I’ve never been hazed. But if it was common place to haze interns, here’s what hazing might look like in the funeral industry:

1.)  At 2 AM in the morning you call out Intern Johnny and say, “Johnny, there’s a call at ‘such and such’ address.  Mr. Johnson has died.”  If we’re hazing Johnny, it’s assumed that Mr. Johnson’s death is fictitious, but the address doesn’t have to be.

The possibilities are nearly endless:

Mr. Johnson’s house could be the funeral director’s ex-girlfriend/boyfriend’s house.

Johnny pulls up to ex-girlfriend’s house, rings doorbell and waits.  Ex scrambles to get dressed, opens the door and reluctantly says, ‘Can I help you?”

Johnny: “I’m here to pick up Mr. Johnson.”

Ex.:  “Who?”

Johnny: “Mr. Johnson … a deceased family member of yours?”

Ex.:  ”I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson doesn’t live here … you have the wrong house.”

Awkward.

Or, if the funeral director isn’t so diabolical as to send intern Jimmy to his or her ex’s house, he could just send Jimmy to an abandoned house.

Or, Mr. Johnson’s house could be the funeral director’s friends house and your friend could pose as the dead guy, who is waiting to scare the living S*%# out of the intern.  And this idea leads to the next hazing …

2.)  You could lay in a body bag in the morgue awaiting said intern.  From there, scare as you wish … preferably BEFORE said intern starts the embalming process.

3.)  “You embalmed an alive body” is a pretty nasty thought; and an equally nasty hazing.  Intern comes back from picking up a body at a nursing home (most nursing homes don’t have morgues … we literally take the body out of the bed … which can create confusion when there’s two or three or four people who sleep in same room).  Intern embalms said body.  Funeral director comes storming into the morgue, “Is that the body you just picked up from the nursing home?”

“Yes” says intern sheepishly.

“The nursing home just called and said they gave you the WRONG BODY!” says funeral director in mass hysteria.  “The body on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM was the one that was dead!!!”

“DID YOU EMBALM THE BODY!?!” says funeral director!

Intern’s face becomes ghostly pale and distorted.

“They said the body you picked up was JUST SLEEPING!”  That person was alive!

“Quick, try CPR” says funeral director.

When CPR doesn’t work, the funeral director screams, “NOOOO!!! YOU KILLED THEM!”

“What?” says intern.  “NOOOO!” says intern.

At this point the hazing begins to involve some sense of ethics.  Does the funeral director push this hazing farther by suggesting that the intern must clean the morgue top to bottom so as to cover up said “killing” or does the funeral director stop the hazing and save the poor intern a heart attack?

4.)  Or, the funeral director could just have the intern clean the morgue, pick up dead bodies in the middle of the night, yell at them all the time … oh, wait, that’s what happens anyways.  And this is why there’s no rite of passage in the funeral business.  There doesn’t need to be.

You’ve probably seen the ghost elevator prank that’s going viral this very moment, but you may not have seen the dead body in a casket elevator prank.

Here’s the video:

This book sold out within the first hour:

Our “Two Funerals for the Price of One” was awarded to the first 15 customers in the arrangement room.  Edna, Mary, Shirley, Evelyn and Ruth wait patiently to cash in on this special sale.

A melee broke out over our limited number of 80% off Funeral Director Lego set:

As their wives wait in anticipation, Joe Schilling and Tom Johnson fought over a half-price casket:

The Barbie play set was sold out in 10 minutes.

Finally, Adam Sweaty camped out in front of the funeral home for five days to be the first in line for this beautiful discounted Ford Mustang Hearse.

Well, it looks like the couple in this joke had the same type of marriage.

In the event of the Zombie Apocalypse, the big corporations would find a way to live on.  Corporations are — by definition — the living dead, so their transition from pre to post apocalypse should be easy.  Except they’ll need a slight branding and marketing change.

So here’s a prophetic vision on the post apocalyptic capitalistic / cannibalistic zombie market:

Our funeral home doesn’t have a secretary.  We answer the phone ourselves.

When you work at a funeral home, any call could be a death call, and it would be really awful if someone called us to ask for our help with a death in their family and we don’t pick up the phone.

So if I’m answering the funeral home’s phone and I’m on the toilet, it creates a predicament.  The crux of the predicament is this: many times the nature of the phone call demands that I have access to all the information on my computer data base.

When I’m on the toilet and I get a call asking, “Can you tell me the middle name of such and such who died in 1997?”, or “I’m researching my family history and I need to know where John Doe is buried” I can’t simply say, “I’m taking a dump … give me another five minutes.”

I usually look around for some paper and a pen, which is common place in the restroom of a business; but, in our funeral home that pen and paper always seems to be mysteriously absent.

If the paper and pen are absent, I lie.

I guess these lies are by definition “white lies” as they’re not meant to harm, but to simply protect the sensitivities created by social mores.  Nobody wants to be told that they guy on the other line is relieving himself of yesterday’s turkey and bean dinner.

Here are a few white lies I’ve used:  “I’m outside doing some yard work, let me put you on hold.”  “I’m in the process of restarting my computer, just give me a minute … you know how long it takes PCs to start up.”

Nothing awful.  Plain, innocent, necessary white lies.

My phone doesn’t have a “hold” button or a “mute” button, so I put my thumb over the talking end of the cordless and hope I can complete my task with one hand.

It gets tricky.  Sometimes sticky.  But I’m pretty talented.

In fact, answering the phone while on the toilet only involves minor league talent.

Major league talent is put to the test when you’re sitting on the porcelain and the doorbell rings.  Then you pray to God that your movement was Teflon coated.

FuneralOne posted this meme on Facebook and it’s pretty good.