Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/16/prankster-gets-the-obituary-he.html
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Uh…
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Wound up getting covered by the Courant as piece of news.
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Heller was the fire department’s engineer
Explains everything.
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I can only hope I am remembered half as fondly 
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This is epic! Also, why don’t obitiuary sites believe in paragraph breaks FFS?
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That’s wonderful. I can only hope someone writes something like that for me when I’m gone.
It reminds me of when the passing of Negativland’s Don Joyce was announced on Facebook someone commented with, “who?” Which seemed like an almost perfect response.
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Because they have to bury the lede - and the body - intact and unbroken?
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Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between a good death and a bad death. While I have no clue how to nudge my own demise into the good category, this looks like a shining example of the sort of thing that would count.
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[Sitting up in coffin]: “…and I can only hope I am fondled half as memorably!”
Family: “Dammit Dad, we told you to stay dead!”
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I highly recommend checking out Caitlyn Doughty’s website/youtube channel, in that case:
Ask a Mortician is one of the best youtube channels out there:
You have look, but she has videos on issues like home deaths/funerals, dealing with a funeral home, cremation options, death doulas, and she’s a huge advocate for both home deaths/funerals (when possible) and green burials. She also has lots of great death stories to share…
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In a very strange fashion, this sounds like a really healthy family relationship.
I know when my engineer dad carks it, we’re definitely sending him off with a final bad pun. The only difference will be that that will be the only time that there’ll be no even worse pun followup from him that makes us regret starting a pun war.
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Bet you a fiver he wrote it himself. And told his family “DO NOT replace this with a traditional sappy obit !!!”
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I’m sure they read it to him before he died. What a cool family.
Yeah, my thought too. Catch-22?
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why don’t obitiuary sites believe in paragraph breaks FFS?
It’s because newspapers charge by the line, and many funeral homes don’t bother to reformat the obit for their own website.
Interestingly enough, there is a whole genre of self-written/family-written funny obituaries, and they often borrow the same same jokes and tropes from previous funny obits. Sometimes the “self-written” obit is just a patchwork of pieces of other obits pasted together.
Mr. Heller’s seems to be mostly original as far as I can tell, but this bit is a very common trope:
If there was ever a treasure that he snatched out from under you among the mounds of junk, please wait the appropriate amount of time to contact the family to claim your loot. We’re available tomorrow.
Good point about the newspaper obit. But still–you’d think with all the money people pay for funerals, the funeral home would throw in a few carriage returns!
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