Allied Professions

Contributions for Your Favorite Charity - Nominate Your Charity in the Comments

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:08:19 -0500

I got this idea a few weeks ago reading my Real Simple magazine and an article on how people give back over the holidays. One reader wrote that she has a charity giveaway on her blog. Great idea!

So here’s the rules; Just hit the comment button below and nominate your favorite end of life non-profit organization. For every subsequent comment from another visitor agreeing with your nomination I will donate $1 to the charity with the most votes, up to $500. It can be a local, state, or national organization related to any end of life industry: funeral service, hospice, organ donation, grief and bereavement, burial assistance fund, military , mentor associations, or something I haven’t thought of. I’ll close the comments out on December 23rd , and let the voters choose the winner.

I reserve the right to deem any organization unsuitable for the contest. The charity must be a non-profit, and must be verifiable as legitimate. I won’t donate to any group that I morally or ethically oppose, such as an assisted suicide organization.

Make your nomination now and let’s see if we can raise $500 for your favorite end of life non-profit. Don’t forget to tell your friends and colleagues to vote too. You need them to win!

Cyber Monday

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:50:41 -0500

You’ve probably heard of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when “crazy” people get up at 4am to get a good deal on a present, (the rest of us are in a “Turkey Coma” at 4am the day after Thanksgiving). So, Cyber Monday is the Monday after Thanksgiving when people go back to work and shop for the great on-line deals.

There’s even a website dedicated to helping you plan out where you’ll shop on Monday, www.cybermonday.com. It gives the scoop on the deals of over 500 companies and what their on-line deals will be on Cyber Monday.

One of the companies listed, www.Overstock.com, believe it or not is selling caskets with free shipping on Cyber Monday. We really need to take the phrase, “Now I’ve heard it all” out of our vocabularies. If Costco can sell caskets I guess Overstock.com can too, but here’s some things you should know. Two of the caskets are rated with 5 stars, I find that hilarious, obviously the occupant didn’t rate it… or did he? Here’s the actual text from one of the five star rating reviews, “This is a nice casket very plush and it does not feel cramped inside, lots of leg room. I highly recommended this product.” It takes 2 days from the date of order to deliver the casket, but they don’t deliver on Saturdays, Sundays, or Holidays. And here’s the interesting part, caskets aren’t exempt from their return policy. I looked high and low on the site, read the fine print of what you can and can’t return, I went as far as “add to my basket”, but can’t find anything that says you can’t return a casket. You can’t return underwear to Overstock.com but you can return a casket. Does anyone else find that odd? Gross? Wrong? Pick an adjective.

So have fun shopping at work on Monday, and visit CyberMonday.com and even Overstock.com, just be sure to read the return policy on everything you buy, and make certain there is one.

Pet Caskets, Green Burial, and Organic Embalming Fluid, Oh My...

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:14:01 -0400

I recently attended the National Funeral Directors Association Annual Convention in Orlando. I saw old friends, made some new ones, and overall had a great time. (Here comes the “but”) BUT, I was shocked by some of things I saw all in the name of progress. Read the following all in good fun.

I saw caskets that have been designed to be buried standing up, four per grave space. Yikes. I don’t want to stand up for eternity as that sounds horribly tiring. Not to mention the personal space issue. I think it’s nice that cemeteries give everyone their own grave space. For anyone who thinks we’re running out of land, have you flown over Wyoming lately? I have, there’s plenty.

I talked to a funeral director who told me he bought a case of organic embalming fluid. I didn’t know whether to ask, “What?” or “Why?” first. I picture an obese man who died of a heart attack on the embalming table being injected with “organic” embalming fluid…hadn’t exercised in years…ate steak every night…like he’d care. I’m still not sure what organic means in the context of embalming fluid. Is it ok if we mistake it for our bottle of Evian? It’s just absurd.

Then I saw so much pet cremation and burial merchandise I started looking for the “National Veterinarian’s Convention” signs. May I just say, “Pets are not people.” I’m not offended that someone wants to honor their beloved pet with cremation or burial. But I cannot explain to you to what extent I saw this merchandise, it was literally everywhere. I heard two funeral directors talking about the issue and one told the other, “I took care of a woman’s husband and she spent $500 on his cremation, when her dog died, I took care of the dog and she spent $700.” I guess the husband should have spent more time “sitting” and “staying”; perhaps he would have been treated better in death. I even saw a dog casket in the shape of a bone, seriously, have you ever seen a dog in the shape of a bone? All I ask is that our human loved ones receive the same respect as our pets seem to have aspired to.

And if it wasn’t a pet cremation exhibit, it was a green burial exhibit. I’m all for green burial, but for goodness sakes the exhibitors need to stop acting like they invented something here. I would like to make a motion to nominate Moses as the rightful creator of green burial. My father (63 years old) tells stories of home burial when he was young and his uncle died in the 1960’s. This isn’t a new concept, but Al Gore would have been proud had he attended this convention.