On my daily walk home from work, I pass a funeral home. And every time I pass by the funeral home, I notice a metal upside down overflow grate in the sidewalk sticking up. I always think to myself "man, I should really flip that over so no one trips on it" but I never flip it over. Then I wondered if the funeral home does this on purpose. I wondered if they secretly hoped that someone would trip and break their neck and die and contact them to have their funeral. Instant business. I am pretty sure no one can die by falling from this tiny grate, so I wasn't thinking too seriously about it. Then I was thinking how everyone wants to talk about the economy and how tough things are, and started to think about what that conversation would be like with a funeral director. I am pretty sure their business is pretty steady. Maybe the conversation is like "people aren't spending money on funerals these days. People want half as much embalming fluid and less makeup. They buy the tin coffin not the mahogany." But I wondered if they were ever hoping for a serious catastrophe. Like a bus full of senior citizens crashing on the way to the casinos. An uptick in business. Or do they just hope for steady business and no catastrophes? Or do they say stupid trivial things like "people are living a lot longer these days."
