Salad Depot (photo: Becksta1)

Salad Depot.

Since we’re all suffering through the verbal salad of wall-to-wall babble about debt ceilings and entitlements, the words that mean something other than what they are have been all too much a part of our lives recently. I must say, when John McCain stated on the Senate floor that ‘”some of us have been in this body less than seven months,” I had to start chortling at the admission that these crazees really are Aliens.

The ways we put things always gets through my serious side, and although I worked for many years in the legal field, I never can repress a snort when someone sends “the papers for your execution.”  Then you’re supposed to sign them in front of some witnesses or a notary!  My mom didn’t have anyone that foolish!

Do you have any favorite unconsciously funny ways of expressing things? Or favorite gaffes, like a local dance studio that put up a sign announcing the dates for the coming “Spring Rectal”?

But I’m not all about fun this week. I’ve been looking into doing something end-of-life final, and donating my body to a medical school. This came up while looking at some funeral arrangements with a friend who is going through a family death, it’s something that’s bound to come up for all of us one of these days. I’d always casually told my family that I have absolutely no wish to have a funeral, but then I wrote a letter to that effect to formalize my wish.

Discussions with your doctor is what really needs to take place. Although there are firms that will actively solicit a bequest of this nature, I find that when any actual medical school needs study material – you – rather than they have to pay for what you donate as a gift.

I’d be interested in knowing what sort of discussions of this nature you ever had with your family or physician? And have you ever done a Living Will to make things easier on the family in case, heaven forbid, you have an accident? Yes, I did this when I traveled to some dangerous areas a few years back.

If you like, we can go back to things that make you laugh. Another goodie that cropped up in legalese was an attorney who discussed – with a straight face – the question of whether the deceased was alive at the time of his death.No, I’m not making that one up.  You can see how it might be a question though, surely?