Friday, November 16, 2012

Twinkies and Corpses - Perfect Together


All this talk about Twinkies and Hostess cupcakes reminds me of a very funny story.

Many years ago I had a friend whose grandfather absolutely loved Twinkies and the NY Post (he enjoyed the headlines). When his grandfather died in the early 1980s, his family placed a few boxes of Twinkies and a copy of the NY Post inside the coffin.

About ten years later, his wife (my friends' grandmother) died. She wanted to be cremated and have her ashes buried with her husband. My friend asked the cemetery to dig up the coffin so he could place the ashes inside, but they refused. Not letting that deter him, he convinced a bunch of us to sneak into the cemetery at night. Our plan was to dig up the coffin, throw the ashes inside, and quickly re-bury the coffin. A very simple plan, provided we didn't get arrested in the process.

On the night of our adventure, it was very cold and the ground was hard. It took us what seemed to be an eternity, but we were finally able to dig up the coffin. At that point someone pulled out a thermos and started handing out cups of hot coffee. While we were drinking the coffee, my friend reached into his grandfather's coffin and passed out the Twinkies (making sure to still leave a few with his grandfather). He proclaimed (tearfully) that his grandfather would have been happy to share his Twinkies with the people that reunited him with his wife.

We ate the Twinkies and drank the coffee. We were happy. We did a great thing. Or so we thought.

A few years back I ran into my friend (who I hadn't seen in years). We got to talking about our night at the cemetery. It was at that point that he made a confession. He admitted making up most of what he had told us about his grandparents. In a nutshell; both he and his grandfather loved pranks. He bet his grandfather that after his death he could convince a few saps to show up to the cemetery at night and dig up his body. His grandfather loved the idea! In fact, it was his idea to include the Twinkies in the prank. Whoever the saps ended up being, his grandfather really wanted them to eat food out of his coffin. According to my friend, towards the end of his life it was all his grandfather talked about. It became his dream in life (and death). He needed a food that would last, so he chose Twinkies.

Putting the ashes into the coffin was his grandmother's idea. She was in on it as well. My friend had the prank all planned. He just needed his grandmother to die. When she finally passed, he was sad, but also very excited. He told me that at her funeral he looked like the cat who swallowed the canary. This elicited many strange stares from the other mourners, but he didn't care. After years of waiting, he was finally going to dig up his grandpa.

Talk about one funny (and sick) family.

No comments:

Post a Comment