A funeral is an occasion for remembrance, the expression of grief, and the quiet contemplation of mortality. Or an opportunity to get laid, shout obscenities, and argue over the will. In any case, try to stay classy, party people.
This piece is based on a number of AskReddit threads. Sources at the end of the article.
The deceased’s six grandchildren sang an impromptu parody of MC Hammer’s “You Can’t Touch This” including the line “Stop. Gramma Time.”
-BlueMacaw
An aunt tried to crawl into the casket with her father who had abused her for her entire life, even after she was married.
This all took place in front of the grieving widow. And his mistress.
-StinkyPetes
The daughter of the deceased was being hit on and captain creepy pants used this line:
“You know better than anyone how short and fragile life is.”
Then something about showing her life, I was too busy laughing at her twin brother laying him out.
-fiveandthreequarters
A co-worker’s wife died. I never met her, but I wanted to support my friend, so I went to the viewing.
It was a small funeral home with only one viewing going on when I arrived. I didn’t see my co-worker, so I started to look around the room at the photos and flowers.
An older lady approached me and said “How did you know Beth?” Funny, I thought her name was Barbara, but whatever. I said “We never actually met. I work with her husband and I’m here to support him.”
Yeah. Barbara’s viewing was actually the next day. Beth was murdered by her husband. Oops.
-LXIV
“But Moooom! Who gets Grandpa’s big screen TV?”
“God dammit, Jeremy! He’s not even in the ground yet! Shut the heck up!”
My aunt and cousin dividing up my late Grandfather’s possessions while he was being lowered into the ground.
-JDogg_of_RS
My daughter (lets call her Connie) was around 3-years-old. We had taken her and my son (10) to my uncle’s funeral. Her being little, we didn’t think she would understand, so we didn’t take her to see his body. As my son came out of the room, we all headed for the door to leave, while Connie screamed over my shoulder: “I wanna see the dead guy!, I wanna see the dead guy!”
-that1whitedude
My friend’s ex girlfriend made her own prayer cards with a picture of him and her (instead of the ones his mom made of just him) and passed them around.
She also stood in front of the coffin and took pictures of him, rubbed his face so hard his makeup started coming off, and asked his dad for his sperm.
-Altrac15
My Grandma’s funeral was a Polish funeral, so we got wasted during the wake. My two aunts never got along, and my rude aunt who lived with my grandma was in one of her special moods that day.
After some heavy drinking, and some arguing, my aunt yells to the other aunt “Now that mom is dead, you can use the sex toy I put in your birthday cake.”
-ooo-ooo-oooyea
I had a family member ask to bury a live grenade with grandpa. Apparently he’d always taken it with him places after his wife died because he was scared of the terrorists, and if they were going to take him he was going to kill them all. We had to tell him no.
-FunDirector
I had a service for an army veteran. The army sent lookalikes (and act-a-likes) of Laurel and Hardy.
These guys struggled mightily with folding the flag, then decided to just hand the family the flag in a blanket fold. They walked away, and one of our part-timers walked over to dress them down.
Two boy scouts – 13 and 14 years old, stepped forward and properly folded the flag for the family, and presented the flag in the proper fashion.
-FunDirector
My uncle wasn’t very religious and asked for a humanist service before cremation.
The humanist guy turned up 40 minutes late, admitted he’d forgotten his notes, got the deceased’s name wrong multiple times and when he realized the whole thing was totally unsalvageable, he turned to the coffin and said: “Well at least he won’t mind. He’s dead.”
He capped off by the brother of the deceased, tiring of the whole mess and yelling: “Just push the freaking button and burn him.”
-howdeho
I was at a funeral for my grandfather, and my cousin was casually uploading a vine of her touching his face in the casket.
-JamesDaScrub
While we were stood at the cemetery where a relative was being laid to rest, my mother spotted the senile, oblivious 95-year-old brother of the deceased and whispered to me: “There’s no point in him going home.”
-fweng
This is a personal experience via my dad’s funeral.
I was 23 at the time and my grandfather on my mother’s side said to me, “You better take this as an opportunity to accept Jesus into your heart if you ever want to see your daddy again.”
Jeez, guy.
-WhatsThatSkaSong
“I want everyone to go home and take a look at all the family portraits on their walls and think about which of those people are in heaven.”
-nikkifarnell
My family buried my mom in her finest ‘Fredericks of Hollywood’ lingerie.
It was only in a closed casket, but mama went to the grave in a frilly black neglige, with matching thong and stockings. She was also in her 90s.
Thank God for the closed casket.
-FunDirector
At my grandfather’s funeral six months ago, my distant cousin’s wife’s phone rang not once, not twice, but three times.
Nothing has ever made me so angry. One time? It’s an understandable accident. Three times? Screw you.
-EpicFailWizard
At my grandfather’s funeral six months ago, my distant cousin’s wife’s phone rang not once, not twice, but three times.
Nothing has ever made me so angry. One time? It’s an understandable accident. Three times? Screw you.
-EpicFailWizard
My step-mom was meeting my dad’s family for the first time.
Unfortunately, it was at the funeral for his grandfather. Great Grandpa was a funny man from Czechoslovakia and lived in Omaha, which had a pretty huge Czech population.
At one point, the family members come up one at a time to throw a flower into the open grave. It had been raining recently and my step-mom got too close and FELL INTO THE GRAVE. She was scrambling to get out but kept getting handfuls of mud. My family eventually helped, but only after they were able to stop laughing.
She was officially part of the family.
deleted
A friend of mine went out hiking and fell down a ravine.
At his funeral I was sitting quietly outside when a garishly dressed lady with large amber earrings came and sat by me. She asked if he was my friend. I said yes. She patted my hand and replied,”it was my dogs who found him. I was taking them for their evening walk.”
Guess what, lady? That did NOT comfort me.
its_not_appropriate
A 12-year-old friend of mine shouted “PENIS” at our teacher’s funeral.
Everyone went quiet, and he was escorted from the church by his parents. We stopped being friends that day.
-DragonlordSupreme
I saw a funeral where a son got up and berated his mother (the deceased) because she was an absolutely horrible woman. After him, other people talked about how awful the woman had been to them, and it turned into a group therapy session.
-FunDirector
I’m a funeral director. We did a funeral for a member of a biker gang. He’d been killed immediately when he hit the back of a tractor trailer at about 120 miles an hour.
His entire body was broken. His family decided to have an open casket. We’ve got him dressed in his leathers, in our chapel, with a biker preacher doing a sermon.
After telling the crowd multiple times that we didn’t allow alcohol in the chapel we gave up. The place reeked of leather-sweats and cheap cologne and even cheaper alcohol.
My grandmother died this past May and my cousins and I were pallbearers at the funeral. During the funeral we were all joking around and laughing about memories with our grandmother.
As we were walking behind the hearse on the way to the burial site it was silent, we got to the site and the six of us unloaded the casket and began walking to the site with the casket when my cousin loudly says “dude, I’ve got to take a runny dump”.
This lead to six grown men, carrying their grandmother to be buried, laughing uncontrollably as family and friends watched, thinking we have all lost it.
-Bruton_Gastor123
We get to the cemetery and there are probably a hundred bikers in procession, and of course law enforcement vans taking pictures. The casket was closed and they stick around to watch it be lowered.
As soon as it’s in the ground the pallbearers began to urinate on it. I look at the funeral director overseeing the service to see what we should do and he’s just backing away from them.
We retreat to the car and watch as they had more urinating on the casket, more drinking and drug use. Police broke it up, chased them off and arrested some. It was memorable.
-FunDirector
I used to altar serve, and once witnessed a lady walk up to her mother’s coffin as the perfect picture of anguished, raw grief, and as she knelt down to kiss it. She then gave a huge, relieved, joyous smile and actually did the “YES!” fist, hiding it as part of the sign of the cross. She tipped us $50 each for serving, too. Odd.
deleted