The night I scared two lovebirds outside the mortuary

I didn't get around to telling you the rest of the story. You know, the one about working in the mortuary.

It took a few tense moments the first night when the reality of the job set in. As casually as if my boss was asking about the weather, he asked me to make the rounds of the mortuary after closing and turn out all the lights and put down the lids on the caskets (only not in that order, the lights came last) in the viewing rooms.

Intellectually speaking, you know you are alone in those rooms, but not quite. People say you can get used to anything, but I have never gotten used to anchovies on my pizza or being alone in a room with a formerly live person.

One of my duties was to see to the fact the outside doors were closed and locked as well. In this particular funeral home, since it was on a corner lot, it was important to check the door that led from the chapel to the covered walk, which led to the street.

That covered walk was as nice and dark as a lover's lane since it had well-trimmed hedges on both sides and a dark green awning over the top. The walk led to the huge back double-doors, which were wide enough to accommodate the passage of a coffin carried by six pall-bearers.

One dark and gloomy night, I went clear around the inner corridor and rattled the door knobs. Everything was just fine until I got to those side doors, where I got the livin' daylights scared out of me because, as I rattled the door knobs, a loud boom shook the doors in my hands. That was followed by a scream of glass-cracking decibels.

As much as my better judgment told me not to, I knew I had to open those doors even though every fiber in my being said don't. I did.

There on the sidewalk, flat on her back, was a young lady tearfully pleading with me, "Please don't kill me!"

Looking up, I saw the young man with whom she had just been amorously dallying, making serious tracks crossing the street with the same enthusiasm he would have had he been in the first heat of the World Olympics 100-meter dash. He'd used the door as a starting block. That's what made the loud boom.

She was still blubbering as I helped her to her feet. There was a slightly muddy foot print right on the middle of her chest, where our hero had stepped on her in an effort to escape what he thought sure as hell was Freddie Krueger fresh from "The Nightmare on Elm Street" coming out of the mortuary to cut him up with a chainsaw.

He had actually run right across the love of his life as though she were the door mat.

I have a hunch those two had words about that later. "Hero, my foot!" says she.

Incongruous as it may seem, funeral homes are really upbeat, friendly places. The people who work there know it isn't easy to part with a loved one, so they try to not work too hard at being overly solicitous. If anything, they want the survivors to feel at home ... well, maybe not at home exactly, but comfortable and under the impression they picked out the right place.

That scenario went a tad too far one night when a group of Hungarian Gypsies held a wake for one of their dearly beloved in Viewing Room Number 3.

I kept checking the room and, although they were a little loud, I figured they weren't bothering the other guests, but I felt obliged to shut 'er down at midnight. I had a test the next day and needed the sleep.

The sad/happy revelers finally left and I straightened up the viewing room ... just in time, I might add, to take a lit cigar out of the grasp (or death grip, as it were) of our tenant.

Sadly, they took their balalaika with them. I would have liked to learn to play one. The music is like banjo music. It's hard to be sad when you are playing a banjo.

I think bagpipes are quite another matter, however.

Bob Bader is a Lodi chiropractor and writer. He can be reached at drrobertbader@sbcglobal.net.

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