Isobel Asks The Internet

II - The Funeral

I arranged my friend's funeral after she died in a tragic accident! Did I do a good job?

Hey everyone!

So, the other day my friend Mavis was killed after an accident at a pool party, and I took it upon myself to arrange her funeral so everyone could commemorate her death.

At first it was going SO well. I hired this big church to have the funeral in; after doing some location scouting I knew it would be the PERFECT place. I also got my friend Katie's parents to do the catering because they run a Cantonese restaurant in town that everyone loves. The only problem was that I didn't know many of Mavis's friends, so the guestlist was looking a little sparse. To solve this, I just invited some more of my friends and family, my work colleagues, and my mum even said she'd bring the ladies from her book club! 

When I got to the church on the morning of the service there were a few problems. I walked into the nave to see that all of the pews were GONE. I spoke to the priest and he said that they were undergoing some renovations and all of the seats had to be removed. This was clearly unacceptable, but I phoned the assistant manager, Marceline, at my work (I am a part-time deputy manager of a grocery store while studying for a degree in physics) and she said that she'd bring some of the rattan patio furniture that we sold to the church for everyone to sit on! This would be a good promotional opportunity, as well as solving the problem at hand.

As well as this, when Katie's parents arrived to do the catering, we found out that there was nowhere to power their appliances! They wanted to make things like steamed fish which had to be cooked fresh, so we needed to find a way for them to cook. Luckily, I found a huge generator out of the back of the church that we could use. The only problem was that it was SO loud, however I figured that the priest could use a microphone during the service. 

People started arriving soon afterwards, and I saw Brindie walk in with Debra, another one of our friends who was also at the party that night. I went over to greet them, but they just scowled at me and walked off. I think that they blame me for the death of Mavis which is SO dumb because if Brindie hadn't invited her to the pool party in the first place then none of this would have happened. I also noticed this one girl at the back called Rhonda who looked SO mad but I don't even remember inviting her so she had no reason to complain.

The service began and it was so beautiful. I had forgotten to select any songs to play during the service, but the sound of the generator meant that you didn't really need any music. It was very emotional and I noticed that some people on the furniture were crying but Rhonda looked like she was about to blow a fuse.

About halfway through the service, I faintly heard a woman SCREAMING at the entrance to the church, however she couldn't get in because the electrical generator was blocking the door. Thankfully it was also drowning out her voice so most of the guests at the funeral couldn't hear what she was saying. I figured that it was one of Mavis's enemies and didn't think it would be necessary to deal with her until after the service was over. 

After the service was over, I approached the mystery woman who was dressed SO inappropriately for a funeral; she was wearing a red blouse and trousers as well as a name tag that said "Nicky". When I read the name tag it suddenly dawned on my that this was Mavis's mum, and she was PISSED because no one had invited her to the funeral. To be honest, I was organising so much of this event that I thought that this should have been a job for Brindie, so I don't think this was my fault, although apparently she didn't even know that Mavis was dead until she saw her name on the promotional poster that I had made!

She was behaving in SUCH an unacceptable way. She pointed at the area where Katie's parents were cooking and shrieked "what the FUCK is this" at them. Katie approached her to try to calm her down, but Nicky grabbed a bottle of (dark) soy sauce from the food prep station and started pouring it on the long white dress that Katie was wearing. This made Katie's parents SO angry and her mum even threatened to turn Nicky into roadkill! 

This annoyed Nicky even more and she just went off on a huge, unhinged rant about how someone should have told her that her daughter had died last week. This was unacceptable, and was SO disrespectful to Mavis's memory, and I was about to intervene and have her removed  before Nigella (who is SO kind and sweet but also really aggressive and dangerous) SLAMMED a folded rattan lawn chair into the back of Nicky's head.

Nicky was unconscious but still breathing so we just carried on with the wake. She didn't regain conscious until after everyone else had cleared up and gone home, so thankfully the rest of the day went without a hitch. Everyone loved the food and SO many people asked me where they could buy some of the lawn chairs.

Did I do a good job at arranging the funeral? Was there anything that could have been improved?