Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler My real life Sienfeld Episode

OK long story but if you have time this was just crazy.

This Sunday-Monday I was at some regional meetings for the United Way in a town called Amherst. A friend of mine named Frank, who normally would also be at the meetings, could not make it because his brother in law died.

Because his brother-in-law was from Amherst, a bunch of us who knew Frank better decided we would go see him at the wake. The funeral home was supposed to be very close to where we we were all going for dinner so we piled into two vehicles. I went with our local ED, named Clair. We were supposed to meet up with the others and walk to the funeral home but after standing in front of the restaurant for a while, we decided they must have driven straight to the funeral home.

So having some idea where it was, we started down the street. Eventually, we had to stop into a taxi stand and ask for directions.

"No problem, the funeral home you want is just down the street past the lights."

"Great! Thanks Buddy!"

So off we go. The lights are still two blocks down when we see a funeral home on our left. To summarize,

"Well that can't be it, he said it's past the lights."

"Well, maybe we should go in and check, it looks open."

Inside is a man sitting behind a desk at the far end of a room. He doesn't look our way and continues his very disturbing blank stare at the wall to the left of him. First thing I looked for was a sign that might tell me the name of the deceased. There was none. (Did I mention we couldn't remember his name anyways.) Inside the room with the casket are two lone women. Of course we recognize neither. There is a man in the casket but of course we have no idea what the deceased looks like. There is no sign of our friend Frank.

So we bypass the room with the casket and go into the room where people tend to stand around and chat about polite nothings afterward. There are only two guys in here watching a big screen TV. We do our best to unambiguously walk back to the lobby and decide what to do.

"Andrew, do you even remember the name of Franks brother-IL?"

"No, I only remember that it has something to do with a famous rock star."

"Well, that's no help to me." Clair is totally a classical music aficionado.

"Well, I have an idea." I figure I will go up to the other dead man sitting behind the desk and ask him if he knows who is being waked here tonight and if I hear the name, it will likely stand out in my memory.

"Exuse me, can you please tell me who is being waked here tonight?"

"I don't know."

Long pause......

"Ummmm, how is that? Don't you work here?"

"Kind of, but the funeral directors are late and so they phoned me and asked if I could open things up."
animated funeral home zombie goes back to staring at the wall and I stroll back to over to Clair and try to explain to him (That's right, Claire is a guy.) why this just isn't going to work.

We decide that the best thing we can do is sign the register so if we were indeed at the right place, Frank would at least know we were here. So we sign our names and we go out the door.

Once we get outside, laughter sets in and we are joking around about how strange that was. As we are talking, a car drives up to us, rolls down the window and asks if this is Jim Morrison's wake?

"That's it!!!" I cry.

Clair, thinking that somehow I must have figured out that this is the right place says, "Yes it is, go on right in."

While buddy is parking his car, I start laughing and explain to Clair that although that is definitely the name of Frank's brother, we still don't know if this is the right place.

"Ahh well, let's let him go in anyways."

We are about to head back to the restaurant when we see the rest of the group walking down the street from up past the lights where we were initially instructed to go. Obviously, we had the wrong place. Right......

[Continued in next post]

Well? Hurry!

Real Life Sienfeld, Part II

So we walk up to the rest of the gang and try to tell them "You would never believe what we just did, we crashed the wrong wake!"

Clare, the regional VC (note the spelling and gender has changed as this is Clare #2) interupts us and says, "No you didn't."

"What do you mean?"

"The funeral home up the street is closed, you must have been at the right one."

So after a bunch of chatter and laughter, the whole group heads back to funeral parlor #1. Clair and I discuss what we should do. After all, we were just in there wandering around like idiots. In any case, we decide we better go back in, just in case Frank is actually there now.

We all go back in and a couple of people from Frank's home town recognize his wife. She was one of the two ladies we saw standing close to the coffin. Now the group discussion turns to weather or not we should do the lineup to walk past the coffin thing, seeing as how none of us actually knew the man.

Somebody decides that they are just going to circumvent the whole lineup, which had grown from zero during our first visit to a grand total of four. He heads off around the room directly to Frank's wife. So, like cattle, everyone follows the alpha cow and jumps the queue to go pay our respects to his wife. We must have been quiet a sight.

In closing, it all worked out in the end. Frank's wife was brought to tears that we would all care enough to drop in. She made sure she asked each one of us our names and gave as a surprised hug. Obviously, Frank seems to talk a lot about us. She said that she felt like she knew all of us and explained that Frank will be so disappointed in missing us. He had taken the kids home as they were exhausted.

We never did see Frank but I'm really glad to have gone. It's also a pretty funny experience and these days, I needed a laugh.

Too funny! I'm glad you did make it to the right place.

So it was Timmy Hendricks' wake up past the lights?

Funny Story!

Great story. Thanks for that.

I had my own Seinfeld moment in November. A co-worker and I flew across the country, and we went to pick up our rental car at the airport.

Seinfeld fans already know where this is going, I'm sure.

Of course, they'd been really busy and like the airlines these days, must be overbooking. Naturally, this meant that they had no car for us. As we talked with the sole on duty clerk, a line of travellers formed behind us.

I almost felt badly for the young girl, just doing all she could. Still, I couldn't contain myself and asked if she knew how the reservations worked.

"Yes, of course" she replied.

"You know, I don't think you do," I said. "You know how to take the reservation, but you don't how to hold the reservation."

I couldn't contain myself and started laughing. My co-worker and the clerk just kind of looked at me, but a bunch of guys in the lineup started laughing hysterically.

I got a bunch of pats on the back as we walked away...

well done!!

Both excellent stories, and yet both tragic on different levels.

I had a friend who did the talking on the phone with the newly met girl while chewing an apple to sound casual thing.

Alpha cow...nice