Death forever, sandwich now

The joys of stupid postcards inviting people to informational cremation luncheons.

Every so often a piece of junk mail deserves a place of pride in the recipient’s home. I don’t hoard stuff addressed to “[tenant who hasn’t lived here in ages] or current resident.” I make exceptions exclusively for postcards that feature a stock photo of a sandwich and reminders that someone will eventually have to deal with my dead body.

Over the years I’ve received a few postcards from Cress Funeral Home, a local chain that can prepare your earthly carapace for its last hurrah at eight convenient locations around the Madison area. These mailings are invitations to “lunch and learn” presentations. The first 25 or so people to RSVP get a free meal and an informational talk about planning ahead for their own funerals. Sometimes the invite is for “you and a guest”—a coveted plus-one. 

The first one that landed in my mailbox  asked: “Curious about cremation or burial options?” against the backdrop of a club sandwich and chips. I have displayed it prominently on a bulletin board above my desk for a few years now. It’s my “hang in there” poster, except funnier and arguably more motivating. Let’s think about bodies griddled to ash at 1,500 degrees. Let’s also think about some nice sliced turkey stacked three inches high, between some toasty bread with a bit of lettuce, and a toothpick with the little frilly plastic bit on top. Let us meet Dagwood today and Charon tomorrow.

The lunch-and-learn advertised was at Kavanaugh’s Esquire Club. I’ve never really been, but given the place’s associations with Republican politics, I’ve always associated it with the morbid and rotting anyway. The fine print on the back explains that someone at the event will be selling life-insurance policies, and better still it begins: “If this reaches you at a time of illness or loss, please accept our sincerest apologies.” You can only get this kind of empathetic personal touch from indiscriminate direct-mail campaigns.

No, I have not attended one of these events for the sake of a little stunt journalism, nor do I plan to. I’m not that lonesome, or even that hungry. When I die, you louts can build a catapult and fling me into the middle of Lake Mendota. Not my problem. 

On some level, these things try not to be tacky. Nevertheless, they drift just a little bit away from the treacly performative tact of Big Funeral and toward the mentality of a promotion at a minor-league baseball game. Personally I think the humor gets richer for anyone who’s ever had any involvement within actually planning a funeral at a conventional funeral home. If you’ve had that experience and it left you anything but dejected and angry, well, may your luck continue. The rest of us need to find some way to laugh about it. Like…there are entire catalogs of caskets and urns branded with names that would better suit a downmarket compact car. Put me in the “Cirrus” model when my time comes. Good fucking lord. 

My latest acquisition invites recipients to a Cress lunch-and-learn at a Norske Nook location in DeForest. It doesn’t say if the free lunch includes some of Norske Nook’s famous pie (we’re so painfully close to Eddie Izzard’s “cake or death” routine). This time the sandwich photo looks kind of…red and gooey. I ran it through a reverse image search and ended up looking at a recipe for “The Best Thanksgiving Leftovers Sandwich.” Come on. That’s good. I don’t even have to write the sick jokes for you.

It turns out that lunch-and-learn sessions are a fairly common marketing technique for funeral homes. Googling around, I found a funeral home in the Milwaukee suburbs advertising a “Fat Tuesday Lunch and Learn,” which…if there is anything more freakishly Catholic, I don’t even wanna know. There are even YouTube videos out there offering advice for funereal professionals looking to host their own luncheons. One of them stresses that “follow-up is crucial” (pro tip: make sure they die!). The hustle is enough to make a person believe in end-of-life planning—planning the end of this sandwich and living life.