Q&A Part II.

From CH:

My wife helped to come up w/some questions for ya! Thanks for the great blog...

1. Do you get habituated to seeing dead bodies?

No, I don't get accustomed to seeing dead bodies. And the odd thing is, that it's not the really bad ones that bother me. It's not the brain matter, or the full post body with their shoes shoved back inside their body cavity, or the rotting, slipping, spewing flesh that bugs me. The ones that really get to me are the ones that don't look dead, the ones that are just lying there on a prep table when I turn the light on in some funeral home basement morgue. Those are the ones that scare me. Or the ones in the cooler I do not expect to see. Sometimes on a rolling table, sometimes on a rack with the plastic not covering their faces. Those are the ones that make me jump...downright scare me.

2. Do you believe in God or some higher power more or less because of your work?

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I think I believe whatever the person believed. That's my job, to believe what they believe long enough to get them where they're going. Myself, I am a faithless man. When I go home, and I have a problem, I don't say a prayer, or when I am given something, I don't thank God. I'm...singularly faithless and unimpressed by divinity right now and I think my job has a direct correlation. PERSONALLY, I believe less in anything now than I ever did before...because I know that it's just grim, no matter how you stack it.

3. Do you have to dehumanize people to do the job?

Yes, I do...but not the ones you would think. The only people I really have to dehumanize to make it through particularly emotionally charged calls are the alive ones. Sometimes when I show up, and everyone is so beside themselves they can't even think, and they're making ridiculous suggestions they don't even understand, I look at the deceased and it almost takes everything in me to not say out loud to the dead "You are the only person that makes sense in this room right now". It's ridiculous. The things people think are good ideas when they are bereaved. Take our shoes off? Use some rope? Are you serious? I KNOW how to handle this situation. It's clear to me nobody else does except the dead person. It's like a play, where the main character is the deceased, and the side kick is me, coming to get them out of a bind and bring them back to the base. We know how to play our parts. Everyone else seems like a villain's henchmen that got drunk and lost their lines and are acting so, so utterly ridiculous that I cannot believe what I'm seeing. So, I use my fake smile, sign the fucking paperwork please and for the love of anything sacred let me get this person out of here with some dignity because you are all acting like disgraceful messes right now. That made sense to me. I hope it made sense to you.

4. When you cremate people, does it smell like pork?

I do not personally cremate people, so no. HOWEVER, when our cremationist cremates people it smells more like turkey than anything. It is not a pleasant smell, because the smoke smells like whatever the person smelled like. So, if they were covered in shit, they smell like roast turkey and poop. If they were rotten, they smell like rotten roast turkey. Not a pleasant smell usually. I did one day show up to work and get an inexplicable hunger for BBQ meat, when I realized it was just the retorts firing away. I was immediately appalled with myself.


5. Ever seen someone sit up or move after death?

No. Plainly. And I've never met any medical examiner, funeral director, embalmer, police officer, removal technician, pathologist or undertaker that has. I'm all but willing to write that off as an urban legend. The story is that the body comes to the embalmer on the table. It's after hours, he's had a long day, it's dark, the place is locked up and he's there all alone with this dead body. Well he starts to work on it and it sits up or moans or something. Well, I don't buy it. It would take an awful lot of gas, probably more than the human body could handle or hold, to make a dead body sit upright. I have, however, heard a body fart. I laughed when I heard it because I was so shocked by what had just happened. I was driving around alone, and it was so quiet I had almost forgotten I had someone with me when all of a sudden "pffffffft". Then I heard this real quiet voice say "Sorry man." Ok, so the last part is a joke, but it does happen.

6. What kind of tools are important to getting the job done (obviously the GPS needs to be faster!)?

1. A van that has been modified to fit at least one mortuary cot in the back. This entails having all the seats rear the driver and passenger removed and replaced with a plastic or metal floor for the cot to slide into.

2. A phone on which to receive dispatched calls.

3. Keys and codes to all the funeral home locks and keypads.

4. Paper.

5. Pens.

6. A mortuary cot, on which are found zip ties, toe tags, plastic barriers, gloves, sheets and towels. The sheets are for wrapping and drawing hard to move individuals. The gloves, obviously, are to prevent spread of disease and contact with bodily fluids. Zip ties for securing the toe tags (now made of Tyvek to withstand moisture) to the individual's right ankle. The plastic barriers are required on all removals and are designed to reduce malodor and contain any lost bodily fluids.

7. What do you do to get your mind off the job when you aren't doing it?

Well, physical activity helps. As does consuming a lot of alcohol on a regular basis. Then there's the normal stuff like spending time with friends, etc. An odd thing that happens is that I'll be driving somewhere, not on duty, and will drive right by a house I've been in. I will say to whomever I am with "I've been inside that house." They will then say, "For what like a party or something?" To which I will reply "No to pick up a dead guy". They will then stare at me for a moment as I drive on in silence. Awkward. Movies are great. Watching horrible videos on THEYNC while eating pasta helps prep the stomach for the tough calls. The norm.

8. Does it make it tough to date or do other things without thinking about death all the time?

Hmm. Well. I think about death all the time. Does it make it tough to date? Hmm hmm hmm. Well, if I had time to date, it might. But usually, on shift, I do not. It definitely puts a death-oriented spin on things. I will never look at a coffee spill the same again, or any non-descript red/orange-ish/brown liquid without thinking about someone's brains or something. Also, I start to judge people based on the level of difficulty for removing them. Say, I see an obese man chainsmoking, I rate him a ten, because he will be difficult to remove from his house. He will die, pants down, face down, wedged into the tiny bathroom of his single-wide trailer. I also try to memorize people's faces that I feel are close to death, so I can see if I will see them sometime soon. So, yeah. Thinking about anything without thinking about death has become difficult.

8. What does you family think about your job?

They think I am doing a good thing for people and they are proud of the work I do. Me, I just think it's gross and mostly stupid and I can't stand the smell of shit. I hate it.

Well that wraps up our second installment of Q&A. I hope it's been fun and informative, because my goal here is education!

Not really.