I am attending my great-uncle’s funeral. As his casket is being lowered into the ground, I notice that all his grandchildren are smiling far too much for such a solemn occasion.

Parent: “Why are you boys grinning?”

Grandson #1: “We’re not.”

Parent: “You absolutely are.”

Before anyone can question them further, thick red, yellow, and orange smoke starts pouring out from underneath the casket.

Priest: “What is that?!”

Family Member: “Is the casket on fire?”

Grandson #2: “No!”

Parent: “How do you know?”

The smoke becomes so thick that everyone has to step away from the grave. Then, from somewhere nearby, a boombox starts blasting “Highway To Hell.”

Everyone turns toward my great-uncle’s three grandsons.

Parent: “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

Grandson #3: “It wasn’t our idea!”

Parent: “You have exactly five seconds to explain yourselves!”

Before their parents can tear them apart, the fourth and oldest grandchild takes out an iPad.

Oldest Grandchild: “Wait! Great-Uncle [Name] left a message.”

He plays a video recorded from my great-uncle’s hospital bed about a week before he died.

Great-Uncle: “Hello, everyone. If you’re watching this, the smoke bombs went off, the music started, and my grandsons followed my instructions perfectly.”

The three boys beam proudly.

Great-Uncle: “Don’t blame them. I planned the whole thing. I wanted one final great prank—and one last chance to make my children clutch their pearls.”

The family goes from furious to laughing, and the grandsons escape punishment. Their parents calm down pretty fast.

The poor priest, however, takes a little longer.

When I was younger, my immediate family went on a trip together with our cousins. It had been one of my cousin’s birthdays a couple of days beforehand, and we had had some leftover birthday cake before going out for the day. The one I am telling this story about was seven at the time. 

During the trip, we passed an ice cream shop:

Cousin: “I want ice cream!”

Aunt: “No, you can’t have ice cream. You already had cake.”

Cousin: “You know, this is how revolutions start.”

Long before my great-grandmother passed away, she had a stroke and, eventually, became bedridden. Once she moved into a nursing home, her family started emptying her house, knowing she would never return to it. While going through her clothes, they set aside the dress she wanted to be buried in.

Years passed, and so did she. My grandmother, who had stored The Dress in her closet, pulled it out and said: “Oh no, this won’t do!” She found a cigarette burn hole below the pocket on one side. The hole was no surprise to anybody since my great-grandmother had smoked her entire adult life.

Nobody else thought it was a problem; it was just part of who she was, it was small, and, in a half-closed casket, who’s going to know? Even if someone, somehow, knew, what are they going to say? But for my grandmother, oh no, that just. wasn’t. acceptable. The dress my great-grandmother had chosen, the dress she had worn for years, out in public, WITH the cigarette hole in it, was dismissed and tossed in the trash.

Then my grandmother made the unilateral decision to go to the family-owned department store, where my great-grandmother had bought her clothes for decades, and…buy a new dress. For Great-grandmother to wear. For 72 hours before she – and the dress – disappeared from view, forever.

For those who don’t know, clothes taken to a funeral home for the deceased are usually slit up the back, anyway, because not doing so would make dressing the person nearly impossible.

Then Grandmother got mad because none of her siblings were willing to share the cost of the dress, which she alone had determined was necessary, saying the one their mother had wanted was perfectly fine.

It’s the season of the US Presidential Election, which is always a fun time to be around my aunt (sarcasm). She’s swinging by to say hello and asks me:

Aunt: “Hey, you’re old enough to vote now! Have you voted yet?”

Me: “All I will tell you is I have.”

Aunt: “Ha! Not gonna tell me you voted for, are ya?”

Mom: “Ladies, either only say nice things, or don’t say anything at all.”

Aunt: “Well, I can guess that you voted for that liberal American-hating woman, so it’s probably for the best we end it there. Got nothing nice to say about her.”

Me: “Actually, I can say some nice things. Like, Aunty, it’s great how who you voted for has normalized men wearing makeup.”

My mom was laughing, but told nineteen-year-old me to go to my room until Aunty left that afternoon. Fine by me!

Way back in the nineties, when I was but a wee young one, I’d gone to stay with my (then childless) aunt for the weekend. She offered me ice cream, which turned out to be sorbet, which I turned away, and she got mad because I wasn’t eating the “ice cream”. So, she called my mom. 

I was not present for the conversation, or at least not paying attention to it, but it’s been retold many times over the years, so I know it well:

Aunt: “Well, I offered her ice cream, and she said she wanted it, but when I gave it to her, she told me she didn’t want it!”

Mom: “Well, that sometimes happens with her, although it’s unusual for her to turn down ice cream.”

Aunt: “She said it wasn’t ice cream.”

Mom: “Did you give her ice cream?”

Aunt: “I gave her sorbet.”

Mom: “She’s correct then; it’s not ice cream.”

Aunt: “It’s frozen! It’s the same thing.”

Mom: “No, [Aunt], it’s not. If you’d told her it was like ice cream, she’d probably have inhaled it. But you told her it was ice cream, so that’s what she’s expecting.”

Aunt: “It’s the same thing!”

Mom: “Only in that it’s frozen. One is made with fruit and the other uses milk, sugar, and cream and maybe fruit. I’m with her on this one; I’d be mad too if I was expecting ice cream and you gave me fruit.”

My aunt apparently tried to convince my mom that I needed to be told to eat it, and my mom continued to side with me. I don’t remember if I got ice cream or not, but my aunt did end up being a lot more careful in telling me things.

Related:
We All Scream For No Ice Cream