Watching the World Urn

Despite occasional evidence to the contrary, and assuming (optimistically) that I have remembered how to work out a percentage on a standard calculator, 71% of my relatives are still alive. This is not a gloat directed at any orphans that may have tearfully stumbled across this page, merely it is a statement of fact. It’s great having your relatives about, though you would be lying if you denied the amount of useful space that would be freed up if you didn’t have to remember so many birthdays. The usefulness of your presence at pub-quizzes would increase tenfold.

Everything’s eventual, and Bruce Forsyth aside (who will be hosting the all-cockroach ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ long after Nuclear Armageddon), we all have our lights extinguished at some point. Assuming we didn’t drive a mini-bus full of family members off a cliff, we leave people behind to handle the grief, memories and (more importantly) the remembrance buffet. Funeral arrangements are also to be considered.

“Would he like to be buried or cremated?”
“Well he did like gardening…but then he also liked warm holidays”

Should you choose cremation you are left with a decision: what do to do with the remains. Standard practice is to scatter them somewhere the deceased loved when they weren't dead, be it the ocean, the bottom of the garden at their childhood home, or over their grandchildren. It is also common for relatives to keep ashes on their sideboard like a ghoulish potpourri. The problem with this is that urns are pretty dull ornaments, even if you did used to kiss their contents. A quick tour around Urns Online proves this point (it also turns out that you can own a pet urn. I wonder what they eat?). So this raises the question, how can you keep your relative’s remains but not get bored of looking at the container? Simple. Keep the ashes in their head. Now really, why has it taken so long for this to be available? True, Ed Gein probably thought about it, but if he did he didn’t follow it through to retail.

All you need is a couple of photographs of your loved one and no sooner than you can say ‘what the…is that…oh good god’, you have your relatives head stuffed with your relative perched on your mantelpiece. They don’t even have to be very good photos as there is an extensive proofing process. Imagine proofing your Gran’s head! Of course, the best part is that you can scatter the ashes and be left with the creepiest nibbles bowl in town. Actually dip would probably be better. You could surround it with crudities and park it on the coffee table when your friends come over. It would be like the banquet scene from ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’.

In the words of Bertie Basset, it takes allsorts, but personally I would bloody hate it. Me sitting on the sofa watching Eastenders and eating crisps while my Mum’s decapitated head stares blankly down at me from the top of the television, as if saying ‘I used to like crisps, now…I am crisps’.

You can own one for only $2,600, which is equivalent to about £2,600. I would say ‘collect the whole set’, but that would make me feel like Charles Manson. These days, that’s frowned upon.