Alrighty hippies, here’s your chance to really put your carbon footprint where your mouth was.
A facility in Durham, England is ready to turn your last act of selfish global pollution into the greenest of green energies. Why let your rotting remains just disintegrate in the ground, a skeleton in a fine suit and a frilly cushioned box being all lazy and just taking up space as subterranean litter when it could be powering 1,500 television sets for an entire hour!
That’s right, I’ll bet you didn’t even know that when you die and bury your sweet, flammable flesh, you are wasting “as much as 150 kilowatt-hours” of usable body heat?! Well you are, Mr. Thinks My Dumb Dead Body Is So Damned Important.
This new and exciting way of making use of your corporeal garbage is coming to the old world because apparently in some parts of Europe the cremation rate is over 90 percent. I imagine that is mostly out of necessity as it’s generally referred to as the old world because people have been dying there for a long time and while digging under existing graves to bury new bodies SOUNDS like the most logical solution in my mind, it has been pointed out on numerous occasions by multiple individuals that my mind don’t work so pleasant extra bucks. So with an estimated (by me) 68% of Europe’s land mass already filled with the plague ridden bodies of Ghost Knights the options for corpse disposal are sort of limited.
While here in the good ol’ USA less than 50% of Patriotic Ameri-deaths result in post mortal immolation. We’ve got plenty of land, generously given to us by the plague ridden bodies of Ghost Indians in which to place the beloved remains of our beloved beloveds. And anyway, we’re Americans, it’s kind of our thing to make sure we waste as much of the planet as possible to make sure Jesus can see how much we’re enjoying ourselves. So don’t worry American dead and dying, this sort of answer isn’t going to come to this side of the pond until we’re already burning enough bodies to make it worth the crematorium’s while.
But that day may be coming. Owner and CEO of Florida based B&L Cremation Systems, operator, cremation engineer and all around fan of ashening the dead, Steve Looker, between mirthless cackles and rubbing his dry, cold hands together in a dark, hollow glee, said. “Over the next 10 years, with the baby boomers coming through, cremation is going to reach 75 to 80 percent. Then, this might be feasible.” Oh, to live your life, excitedly awaiting the mass extinction of a generation as a boon to your bottom line. But, I suppose it’s better than just letting them stack up and smell, so, more power to the creepy bastard wishing death upon millions as soon as possible.
I can’t say which side I come down on the burial vs. cremation subject myself. On one hand I have a place I can call my own for all eternity, or until my head stone is misplaced, or I’m dug up for after-after party necrotic sexy times. And if I’m all still intact, there’s still the chance that I could live again in undead form. While on the other hand, I could be reduced to an easy to carry travel size me. My loved ones wouldn’t have to get in the car and make a big trip of it to visit me, they could just high five the can full of me on the entertainment center. And there’s still the chance that I could maybe have an undead after life, but this one would be in the form of a kick ass Sandmanesque living ash cloud!
It’s kind of a push when I think about it. The only problem I see with being used as an alternative source of energy is that then the hippies would win, and by God, I can’t allow that to happen. So I think the only way I’m going to accept cremation is if it’s going to come by means of me leading police in a high speed pursuit after robbing a whole food grocery outlet, losing control of my stolen electric vehicle and plowing headlong into a gas station in the middle of refueling, taking out the entire city block in a towering ball of fire that can be seen from space…
Gotta add that one to the “death journal”.