Dead People of Walmart

February 24, 2010 6:12 AM

"Generously sized, the Star Legacy's Regal Wide Body has extended dimensions width combined with an adjustable bed. Exceptional quality, sleek design and squared corners add to its contoured look. The hand-tailored white crepe interior and hand-painted, high gloss antique gunmetal finish is complemented with classically designed hardware and premium swing bars. it is the perfect match for the person who lived life to its fullest." Yep, Walmart now does caskets.
posted by unSane (72 comments total)

They have for years. Costco sells them too.
posted by ardgedee at 6:14 AM on February 24, 2010

Costo's been selling them since 2004.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:17 AM on February 24, 2010

That is our most modestly priced receptacle.
posted by The White Hat at 6:18 AM on February 24, 2010 [11 favorites]

SLWM? Curious, but not the best of the web.
posted by ixohoxi at 6:19 AM on February 24, 2010

Whatever the heck happened to your basic pine box? It's not like corpses have to worry about comfort. Sheesh.
posted by Malor at 6:20 AM on February 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

Just because we're bereaved, that doesn't make us saps!
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:28 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Malor: here you go

also, there appear to be some children on your lawn.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:29 AM on February 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Even simpler

still simpler
posted by leotrotsky at 6:31 AM on February 24, 2010

Considering the macabre turn my life has taken as of recent, I would have honestly preferred Walmart's product. You see, Costco always makes you get the six-pack and I can never bear to let anything to go waste...

Continued in next month's Chilling Tales of Horror.
posted by griphus at 6:34 AM on February 24, 2010 [14 favorites]

> It's not like corpses have to worry about comfort.

Funerals are for the living, not the dead. I'm not big on money-blowing spectacles, but I respect those who need to see their beloved go with a little more decorousness and ceremony than a crate and a hole in the ground provide.
posted by ardgedee at 6:36 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Tempting to make the saving, but I daren't risk the penalties under the Burying in Woollen Acts.
posted by Abiezer at 6:46 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've always hoped that if I don't go out in a blaze of glory, perhaps saving a school full of children from some robots, zombies or terrorists, I'll have the wherewithal to build my own casket. Pine or oak, simple and with a nice mineral oil finish. It'll rot and then I'll rot and everything will be good.
posted by Loto at 6:52 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

> Whatever the heck happened to your basic pine box? It's not like corpses have to worry about comfort. Sheesh.

> Funerals are for the living, not the dead.

My father has told me in no uncertain terms that he doesn't want us spending a lot of money on an expensive coffin no-one will ever see again after he's buried. He also recounted his experience buying a casket for his own father: "They take you into the showroom and start out with the cheapest box, which of course looks like a piece of shit compared to the more expensive ones. 'Well,' they say, 'you could buy this one, but most people opt for one of the less frugal models.' It's awful, but don't fall for it."
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:53 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

ardgedee,

I don't believe that Malor is complaining about funerary pomp. I think the complain is that we are burying our dead in what amounts to a modern Pharonic Pyramid. The $3k casket that Walmart sells on their website is CHEAP compared to what grieving family members will shell out for an equivalent model from a funeral home.

Heck, when I buried my father 3 years ago that was about what we paid for an unvarnished pine box. The family is jewish and such "biodegradability" is a requirement. And that basic coffin was still ridiculous.

The problem with our society seems to be that if your fellow mourners look at the casket and think "wooden crate", then you get the gristle next thanksgiving dinner. THAT is foolish. "Respect for the dead" is nice to throw around. But, it is mis-targeted.
posted by Severian at 6:56 AM on February 24, 2010

I can understand the needs of the bereaved to create a solemn, final resting place for their loved one but I have a hard time justifying the waste and the weirdness of it all (what happens to an embalmed body in a casket, in a liner, in a vault? Nothing? does it turn all goopy? weird)

Therefore, when I go, I'd like to be fired from a cannon, through a flaming ring, into the sea. Fireworks would be a classy touch.
posted by device55 at 6:56 AM on February 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

I respect those who need to see their beloved go with a little more decorousness and ceremony than a crate and a hole in the ground provide.

But if you don't get a really expensive one, you end up with something that looks like a wobbly self-assembled entertainment center. "Look, you can fit dad and the stereo and still have plenty of room for the lava lamp!"

My family and friends all want to go out simple. Just not chintzy. A sturdy pine box into the fire is not a bad way out.
posted by pracowity at 6:56 AM on February 24, 2010

Is there a Ralph's around here?
posted by pracowity at 6:57 AM on February 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

That's nothing, REI Adventures is now offering sky burial packages.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:06 AM on February 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Jewish burial law actually mandates that the coffin be a simple pine box. Some are even punctuated with holes to speed up decay (dust to dust.)
posted by griphus at 7:08 AM on February 24, 2010

I know it sounds so twee and Six Feet Under, but natural burials are the only ones that don't fill me with horror. I grew up Irish Catholic, which meant a lot of open-casket wakes several days after death, and even though I don't believe in an afterlife I'll come back to haunt my family if they ever do that to my body. I was dirt before I was born; why would I want to delay returning to the dirt after death with preservatives and a tacky, overpriced box? Even a "discount" one from Wal-Mart?
posted by oinopaponton at 7:09 AM on February 24, 2010

Is "generously sized" the new "husky"?
posted by emelenjr at 7:10 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've always hoped that if I don't go out in a blaze of glory, perhaps saving a school full of children from some robots, zombies or terrorists, I'll have the wherewithal to build my own casket.
I used to work in a remote rural part of southwest China. When visiting one of the villages we were doing projects in, I'd stay at the house of the village cadre. His dad, still alive in his eighties, had been a carpenter and so had made his own coffin and a couple of extras (I presume for other family members). They had these stacked up at the back of the main room of their house, right where we'd eat our meals. It's a fairly common practice in much of rural China. The dad also said that it was getting harder to get the really decent big logs to make a quality coffin what with the deforestation in recent decades, so if he ever had the chance to acquire some good timber he took it and set to work.
posted by Abiezer at 7:12 AM on February 24, 2010

MetaFilter: Old funerals good. New funerals bad.
posted by ColdChef at 7:17 AM on February 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

Funerals are for the living, not the dead.

Very true. When your father's zombie comes after you for revenge for burying him in a simple pine box, don't come crying to me and my happy & comfortable zombie parents.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:19 AM on February 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

The Multipurpose Coffin
posted by pracowity at 7:20 AM on February 24, 2010

Screw burial. I'm going to demand that I be stuffed and mounted and displayed in my kids' living rooms on a rotating base.
posted by brain_drain at 7:23 AM on February 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

I meant to say rotating basis, but on reflection a rotating base is actually much better.
posted by brain_drain at 7:24 AM on February 24, 2010 [15 favorites]

I'd like a funeral like the one [SPOILER ALERT] Boromir had in The Fellowship of the Ring. Lay my corpse in a canoe with my keyboard on my chest and then send the whole kit and kaboodle over a huge-ass waterfall.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:24 AM on February 24, 2010

When my mom died (early 70s), the funeral director recommended a steel coffin in a concrete box. It seemed to make sense then, though I can't recall exactly why. Now it just comes off as a plot to extract more cash from the survivors. When I die you can just toss me into the dumpster or whatever's convenient.
posted by tommasz at 7:35 AM on February 24, 2010

What I want to know is, does Wal-Mart provide complimentary coffins for staff and customers who get crushed or trampled to death on their crazy sale days? Seems like the least they could do.
posted by orange swan at 7:35 AM on February 24, 2010

If I go out like anyone in LOTR, I want it to be Denethor.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:38 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was dirt before I was born; why would I want to delay returning to the dirt after death with preservatives and a tacky, overpriced box? Even a "discount" one from Wal-Mart?

If I can't have a funeral pyre, then I want the cheapest box possible and a quick cremation.

" ... Donny, who loved bowling. And so, Theodore Donald Karabotsos, in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your final mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which you loved so well. Good night, sweet prince."

posted by octobersurprise at 7:41 AM on February 24, 2010

one word.... cremation
posted by HuronBob at 7:42 AM on February 24, 2010

If I go out like anyone in LOTR, I want it to be Denethor .

Burned alive?? *shudder* That's always seemed one of the worst ways to die to me. (Also, ha, that fanvid's song choice is great.)
posted by kmz at 7:47 AM on February 24, 2010

The only problem I have with cremation is that it would be nice to have my body act as food or fertilizer for other living things, and decomposing flesh does the job better than ashes. But that is neither here nor there, and is gross.
posted by oinopaponton at 7:50 AM on February 24, 2010

My father has told me in no uncertain terms that he doesn't want us spending a lot of money on an expensive coffin no-one will ever see again after he's buried.

Sure, and a lot of people feel this way.

But at the same time, by the time it's his funeral, your dad won't have any needs to take care of, and your family will. You/they wouldn't need to feel bad because you bought a more expensive casket or threw a bigger funeral than he would have wanted you to, if those things you get through his death better.

By the same token, if the deceased really wanted a huge shindig and solid gold casket, by the time you are doing this they're dead, gone, nothing, and the family shouldn't feel bad if they decide that what they need is a simple, small, and frugal funeral.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:53 AM on February 24, 2010

If I go out like anyone in LOTR, I want it to be Sauron.

But mostly I still want to be taken out to the Kuiper belt, converted to antimatter, accelerated to high relativistic velocity so my mass isn't much less than Jupiter's, and slammed back into the earth. It's the only way to be sure.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:56 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't think that a box is required for cremation.
posted by Jumpin Jack Flash at 8:20 AM on February 24, 2010

Screw burial.
posted by everichon at 8:34 AM on February 24, 2010

I'm still wierded out about American funeral customs after I found out about them on MetaFilter a couple of years ago. Embalmed and in metal caskets? Really? Our bodies are biodegradable for a reason!
posted by Harald74 at 8:35 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Loto: Tung oil and butcher's wax would be a better choice for the finish, really. Mineral oil takes a zillion applications. I mean, it's your call how much time you want to spend polishing your own casket, but I'd find the metaphorical implications more or less overwhelming and probably not be able to give it the attention it deserved.
posted by rusty at 8:46 AM on February 24, 2010

I decided long ago what I want happened when I die. I want to be cremated, and then I want my loved ones to take my ashes, find any enemies that outlived me, and throw a handful of me in their faces!
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:46 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I personally want to be cremated, and the majority of my ashes scattered around the Casco Bay islands. But I have specified that some of my ashes should be saved for the possibility of zany hijinks involving high winds, clumsy houseguests, and confusingly-similar pepper containers.
posted by rusty at 8:49 AM on February 24, 2010

We actually have the "Standing Tall Cat Calico Brass Urn," but we paid a lot less than $114 for it. It has the ashes of one very small kitty inside so there's room for more when the others kick it.

... there's a part of me that feels weird about doubling up. Then again, I have my dead cat in an urn, so how much weirder can things get?
posted by Never teh Bride at 8:51 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

FWIW, embalming doesn't preserve you forever, just long enough to have a funeral with a viewing. Arguing against it is a bit like arguing against the deceased wearing pants.

And vaults are usually required by cemeteries because it keeps the graves from caving in when the casket rots. And they all decay. Metal and wood. Everything returns to the earth. The only difference is how long it takes.
posted by ColdChef at 9:02 AM on February 24, 2010

Just watched Qi Series G "Gothic" last night, where they were discussing some of the more interesting ideas on burial out there.

See Me Rot: Just Because You're Dead, Doesn't Mean You Can't Have Friends Over!

Yeah. A webcam in your coffin.

Or Liquid Nitrogen Vibration, one of a few environmentally conscious burial methods.

The most amazing, in my opinion, of the green options is this one invented by Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak. Within a few days after death the body is frozen in liquid nitrogen. This makes the body very brittle. The body is then slightly vibrated which turns the body into a powder. A vacuum chamber is then used to evaporate away any water so that the powder is dry. The powder is then placed in a small corn or potato starch coffin and is buried to decompose within a few months. This reduces the environmental impact on water, air and soil compared to a normal burial or cremation.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:23 AM on February 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

As requested in his will, Bentham's body was dissected as part of a public anatomy lecture. Afterward, the skeleton and head were preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet called the "Auto-icon", with the skeleton stuffed out with hay and dressed in Bentham's clothes. [. . .] The real head was displayed in the same case for many years, but became the target of repeated student pranks, including being stolen on more than one occasion. It is now locked away securely.
posted by The Mouthchew at 9:28 AM on February 24, 2010

(what happens to an embalmed body in a casket, in a liner, in a vault? Nothing? does it turn all goopy? weird)

I would suggest this awesome and hilarious book (maybe with a side of this one), but the gist is that embalming only delays the goopiness a year or so, and that liners and seals won't do a thing; all the stuff needed for decomposition is already in your gut, and sealing a casket is like screwing the cap on after trowing the Mentos in your bottle of Diet Coke.
posted by Evilspork at 9:39 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

s/trowing/throwing
posted by Evilspork at 9:40 AM on February 24, 2010

Need a bin for your next of kin? We handle the dead for a lot less bread.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 9:47 AM on February 24, 2010

on reflection a rotating base is actually much better.

Well, yeah, the rotating base has got to be reflective. Disco may be dead, but there's no reason it can't share your fabulous crypt!

More seriously: I've never understood the desire to make sure that your body rots slightly more slowly. Cryopreserving your brain on the one-in-a-billion chance that it will be turned on again someday, maybe. But if you're not going to that extreme, you might as well send your remains to whichever medical school or dog food factory needs it the most. There's not a lot that makes sense in between. Even scattering ashes somewhere is a sentiment where the "somewhere" is much more important than the ashes.
posted by roystgnr at 10:00 AM on February 24, 2010

sealing a casket is like screwing the cap on after trowing the Mentos in your bottle of Diet Coke

This is somewhat inaccurate. A rubber gasketed seal is not air tight. When the air pressure builds up inside of a sealed casket, the casket...well...it farts. Gas escapes outward until the pressure inside becomes stable.

And, as a person who has dug up a few: the body is generally covered with a white foam that is the result of the tissue breaking down. The foam and moisture evaporate eventually, leaving a drawn-up, leathery figure. Also: count on throwing whatever clothes you were wearing away, because they'll never lose that smell.
posted by ColdChef at 10:03 AM on February 24, 2010

HuronBob : one word.... cremation

I'll see that and raise it: one word... explosion

I want my organ donations to be sudden and involuntary for everyone who attends my funeral.
posted by quin at 10:21 AM on February 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

And, as a person who has dug up a few

Tell me you have an assistant--or at least a pet--named Igor.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:44 AM on February 24, 2010

Not to derail, but honest question - what is the purpose of placing caskets in a concrete vault or casing? Is this standard in the US?

My mom died when I was 10, but I distinctly remember seeing her body at the funeral home wrapped in a white cotton cloth, and then people lowering her body, wrapped in the sheet, directly into the ground when we later went to the cemetery - per Islamic funerary custom. I don't believe in the theology, but I've always been fond of this kind of burial - allowing the body to naturally decompose into the earth, without some gaudy pomp and unnecessary expensive bills.
posted by raztaj at 11:18 AM on February 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

I have put some thought into this, and I have concluded that caskets and embalming, etc, are wasteful and useless. My preference would be either burial at sea, or some sort of green funeral. A cloth shroud and six feet of dirt sounds fine to me. Go ahead, plant a tree or rosebush, I won't mind.

That said, I recognize that I won't really have much say in the matter, and things, realistically speaking, will probably devolve into a shouting match over my corpse just because the two halves of my families are so very different. (Religious fundies on the estranged side, reasonable people on the other.)

I just wish I could be around for the fun.
posted by pjern at 11:50 AM on February 24, 2010

I have put some thought into this, and I have concluded that caskets and embalming, etc, are wasteful and useless.

Perhaps they are for you, but many people put value in funeral services.
posted by ColdChef at 12:49 PM on February 24, 2010

Need a bin for your next of kin? We handle the dead for a lot less bread.

I believe the classics are

X Funeral Home. You stab 'em, we slab 'em.

and

X Funeral Home. You kill 'em, we grill 'em.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:50 PM on February 24, 2010

What, no slogans?

Walmart: Everything for your life. And beyond.
Walmart: We've got you covered.

And of course the Khrushchev classic:

Walmart: We Will Bury You.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:10 PM on February 24, 2010

There's also possibly something in "think inside the box" but I can't quite make it work.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:12 PM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Perhaps they are for you, but many people put value in funeral services.

I'm not saying they don't, and I recognize the need for closure. I'm just saying that I'm probably not going to be driving that particular bus.
posted by pjern at 1:33 PM on February 24, 2010

Fair enough.
posted by ColdChef at 1:47 PM on February 24, 2010

This could be a great cost-cutting measure for Walmart. Instead of whatever crappy health insurance they have for their employees (if any), they could just offer a 25% worker discount on a coffin.

As for slogans:

Walmart: From Big Box to Pine Box!
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:36 PM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

That said, I recognize that I won't really have much say in the matter,

Well, you could make a will...
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:37 PM on February 24, 2010

FWIW, embalming doesn't preserve you forever, just long enough to have a funeral with a viewing. Arguing against it is a bit like arguing against the deceased wearing pants.

This makes me wonder how many mefites will plan to go to their burial/cremation/installation as a rotating dad in the family home/Viking funeral pantsless. And covered in bacon.
posted by rtha at 4:01 PM on February 24, 2010

I'd like a funeral like the one [SPOILER ALERT] Boromir had in The Fellowship of the Ring. Lay my corpse in a canoe with my keyboard on my chest and then send the whole kit and kaboodle over a huge-ass waterfall.

That's very poetic and romantic until your bloated, mangled corpse washes up on the public beach at the first village downstream.
posted by CaseyB at 5:17 PM on February 24, 2010

Nah, that would be awesome too. Because, hey, free dead guy.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:44 PM on February 24, 2010

I'm thinking that I could be preserved like bologna is preserved, you know, with salt and lactobacillus and stuff. Then served at the wake as a snack. That would be fucking cool.
posted by unSane at 6:03 PM on February 24, 2010

"Then served at the wake as a snack."

really, is there anything left to say after this?
posted by HuronBob at 8:21 PM on February 24, 2010

BURRRP.
posted by unSane at 8:55 PM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yep, that's about right.
posted by lazaruslong at 10:14 PM on March 3, 2010

Arguing against it is a bit like arguing against the deceased wearing pants.

Now that's a funeral with a showing.
posted by device55 at 3:54 PM on March 7, 2010