Living in the boondocks, it can be quite difficult getting hold of the services that people living in urban areas take for granted.
I have a difficulty with glass. I’m in the process of replacing some double glazing, but I don’t have a local glass supplier. I could pay vast sums to have glaziers come and do the job, but I dislike paying triple for something that I can do myself.
I was wracking my brains to think of a way to get hold of some glass when I had a eureka moment: why not try the local funeral director? As a bit of lateral thinking I think this takes some beating. The buggers even have a massive hearse to transport the glass in. When they’re out on a local ‘job’, they pop the glass under the coffin and nobody’s any the wiser. The corpse is interred, they get a small delivery fee, and I get my glass. Everybody goes home happy.
I’ve actually collected glass from the funeral parlour on a couple of occasions. I get ushered into the back ‘office’ so that I can measure the panes to make sure that the dimensions are correct. It is slightly unnerving to be surrounded by coffins in various states of completion, but thankfully none of them are occupied.
The brothers who run the place are extremely cheerful. They have every right to be. I can’t see them going out of business any time soon.
12 comments:
For the brothers, I imagine your visits do take the pane out of an otherwise dead end job.
Nothing like a bit of gallows humour eh Sid?
It's the way you tell 'em.
where do they get the glass from?
im all confused.
maybe its the cider.
They order glass at commercial rates for use in memorial windows and the like. It comes from a distributor in Glasgow (100 miles away).
I didn't realise there was such a thing as a memorial window ... and I'm not entirely sure I can picture what one might look like.
you are brilliant, truly, as well as thrifty :-)
and the brothers, they've obviously embraced the concept of 'diversifying your portfolio' in an interesting way.
(p.s. so glad to hear someone else lives in the boondocks)
No but they do a nice line in embalming fluid, if that's your kind of thing.
oh hell, now i have another question.
whats a memorial window?
i honestly have no clue. the closest thing i can think of that ive seen her in the u.s. are 1800's mausoleum deposition niches with a window along one side where you can look in and see the coffin and all the aging flower arrangements?
How veh clevah of you! I have a friend who works in a funeral directors, I must bear this in mind when I need some glass. Or a funeral even. I know she has some shelving that she made out of off-cuts from coffins. Very handy people to know.
I once served wine at the All Ireland Embalmers Annual Convention.
*ponders own existence*
There something unnerving about the whole funeral parlour thing, especially where measurement taking is part of the reason for being there.
why on earth do they side deal in glass?
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