Did it "creep you out" or are their other objections (if I may ask)? Years ago I saw a special (a PBS segment or something like that) about natural burial plots in the woods somewhere in North Carolina. -No embalming -No casket -No cemetery -No marker They respectfully plop you in a hole, log your GPS coordinates (so others can locate you later and to avoid double-bookings), wish you bon voyage, and walk away.
I was 18 years old at the time so yes it did creep me out. The thought of living with a husband who came home smelling like embalming fluid and talking about dead bodies all the time was just something I could not see in my future at 18 years old.
You were a wise 18 year old. It' such an odd thing to do for a living...and then there's the smell. WAY worse than dating someone who works at McDonalds
I was a Mortician for hundreds of deaths and never smelled of embalming fluid or talking about my work. My wife, daughter and friends never complained.
It reminds me of a case in Illinois. It was in a Level 1 trauma center, and there was a temporary morgue near the ER where deaths--either DOAs or those who succumbed in the ER--were stored until they could be moved to the big morgue pending ME or funeral home pick up. The ER blood bank was adjoining the temporary morgue. Generally there was only one tech on duty for the night shift in the ER blood bank, and he discovered that that he could catch a nap on a gurney in the ER morgue and the phone would wake him up if anyone needed him. A new security guard was being conscientious when he walked by the ER morgue and noticed what he thought was a newly-dead person on a gurney covered by a sheet. The guard rolled the gurney to the elevator and took the "corpse" to the main morgue refrigerator, which was a large refrigerated room and left it there behind a closed door. The blood bank tech awoke when he became very cold only to discover that he was in a totally dark cold room. He returned to his post and never again tried to sneak a nap in the temporary morgue.
Tangentially related story --- Once upon a time I was an admin assistant for a basic sciences department at a naturopathic medical school, whose budget including acquiring bodies for cadaver anatomy classes. Apparently when the school was very small and housed in a 3 story urban house with a basement in a mainly residential district, the only way to deliver the cadavers was through the basement window, which made the neighbors very curious, if not alarmed and suspicious. More than once cops were called about the weird college sliding dead bodies into the basement. I suppose the neighbors would have been more freaked out if the dead bodies had gotten off the gurney and walked in through the door.
that must have been an interesting education. My ex sister in law is a beautician for a mortuary. Is there concern at the college how funerals are evolving? There are three states, now, where composting the dead is acceptable. Years ago, wakes were held in the house and the family was involved in preparing and burying the body. Then it got to the point that we had nothing to do with the dead. Everything was professionally done. Now, We have a crematorium that will pick up the body, cremate it and bring it back to the family in a box for only $600. It almost seems, anything goes.