Sometimes my mind wanders

If you see my mind run by, please try and stop it.  I think Adrianna’s brain wandered off, too.

This morning following a promotional piece about Highland Brewing hosting Banjopalooza this weekend (yeah, I’d have to be drunk too), there was a tragic story on the news about a police involved shooting here in my quiet hamlet (you’ll get the pun later) of Waynesville, North Carolina.  Apparently police were called to a scene of shots fired.  They discovered a lone gunman hiding in a church; gunfire was exchanged.  The news reported that there was no word on the condition of the gunman who was shot by the police.  This was being said while in the background a video showed the coroner carrying a body bag out of the church.  I guess they didn’t want to jump to conclusions, I mean maybe the gunman was shy and hid in the body bag to avoid having his face on TV.

This, of course, spawned a conversation between Adrianna and I about reusable body bags and whose unfortunate job it is to wash them out, which obviously led to a discussion on the growing popularity of rental caskets, the age-old conundrum of cremation versus burial, and finally to the Danish practice of temporary interment.  Apparently in Denmark, unless you pay an annual fee, you only get to use your grave for ten years, after that they dig up what’s left and evict you.  (That gives a whole new meaning to, “Your time is up.”)  Come to think of it, that is probably why Hamlet delivered his soliloquy while holding Yorick’s skull.  The poor court jester had to give up his grave to the next corpse.

Adrianna was at a loss to explain to me what the Danes do with the disinterred remains.  We joked about grieving families finding an unexpected package at their front door or the possibility of a truly gruesome corner of the local dump, but we decided that the remains were probably cremated.  Which, of course, is ironic, since the family had incurred the expense of a traditional burial only to have their loved one cremated later.

This led two writers’ minds to ponder what happens if those underpaid grave-digger-uppers unearth a zombie or vampire.  But then we remembered the Midsummer Danish Holiday, Sankt Hans Aften (or Saint John’s Eve) where those wily Danes build bonfires and roast witches on stakes (I’d rather roast steaks and s’mores).  Perhaps this celebration, often blamed on those scapegoats of Western Civilization, the Pagans, is really a masquerade to dispose of the annual cache of the undead Danish.

Anyway, I realize it is spurious speculation, but I think the gunman is dead.  I doubt that Brevard resident, Steve Martin, is going to make an appearance at Banjopalooza.  And I would rather be cremated than dumped in a hole.  

Did you ever wonder what editors do with their time?