Hw#50

Precis:

In this book, it is explaining the different costs of funerals and different cost of things you can buy within the funeral home. The first story in this book is about a 18 year old girl who died of a heart attack. The family is trying to buy different things for their daughter such as a coffin, different viewings times, embalming, etc. We find out that during the funeral process that people who own the funeral home don't tell the whole truth when it comes to the things they give. For example the prices of the embalming process.

Quotes:

• Pg.9 "Had the Johnson's known enough to ask Fielding if he'd instead hold Jenny in a refrigeration unit until the viewing, which also would have slowed her decay. Fielding would have said he doesn't offer refrigeration because it won't make Jenny look nearly as good as she could."
• Pg.13 "The price was high, but, they felt, worth the protection bronze afforded. (Had they known, they could have gone online and, tapping into the score of the Internet brokers, ordered the very small casket for overnight delivery for twenty-five percent less. By law Fielding would have been required to accept it, and without charging a handling fee.)
• Pg.32 "There was rot, fungus and mold... Osborne sued the casket's manufacturer for consumer fraud. The company settled the lawsuit out of court."

When it comes to death and dealing with it you never really know if you can trust anyone based on the book. Most of times they over price things, they don't give you different options you can use so you can get things for a lower price, and they also supply you with coffins that are sometimes defective. So far in the 1/3 of this book it really made me rethink about the whole care of the dead process because I never really thought that it would cost so much money to do a funeral in a funeral home and set up viewing times and also get a headstone for the burial and then you also have to organize the burial.