Go Screw Yourself

August 12, 2010 4:39 PM

Getting screwed, even in death.

Inventor Donald Scruggs has patented a screw-in coffin to save space.

posted by bwg (40 comments total)

I like it! Of course, I'd rather donate myself to a school and/or decompose, but this ain't half bad.
posted by phunniemee at 4:42 PM on August 12, 2010

I would not carrot all for this.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 4:42 PM on August 12, 2010 [4 favorites]

They did this with Nixon. Didn't even need the coffin.
posted by stenseng at 4:44 PM on August 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure that funerals are traumatic enough without having to watch Grandpa being spun into the ground.
posted by runningwithscissors at 4:44 PM on August 12, 2010

I wonder what the exhuming process would look like. Do they make screwdrivers that big?

I still prefer my idea of a burial at sea/eaten by sharks.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 4:45 PM on August 12, 2010

Anastarians? Shouldn't that be Anatidarians?

(Did I read too much "The Far Side"?)
posted by Gator at 4:48 PM on August 12, 2010

Silentgoldfish: If that's the case, I think you might be interested in a sky burial.
posted by phunniemee at 4:49 PM on August 12, 2010

I like it, primarily because the screw is a brilliant invention.

But I'd rather decompose.
posted by vitabellosi at 4:50 PM on August 12, 2010

I find the little diagrams showing how it would literally be screwed into the ground (not to mention the fact that it looks like a screw and everything) inexplicably hilarious. And why couldn't they add a harness in a regular coffin and just bury it upright?
posted by a.steele at 4:51 PM on August 12, 2010

Silentgoldfish: "I wonder what the exhuming process would look like. Do they make screwdrivers that big?"

"You idiot, I told you to bring the Phillips-head!"
posted by bwg at 4:54 PM on August 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Like I want to stand for eternity. What? Is the the DMV?
posted by cjorgensen at 4:54 PM on August 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ohhh, the labor costs of digging a hole? Well what about the guy who operates the giant screw tractor and the two guys it takes to wedge the thing in there?
posted by a.steele at 4:56 PM on August 12, 2010

Driving the coffin into a nail?
posted by Xere at 4:56 PM on August 12, 2010

bwg: ""You idiot, I told you to bring the Phillips-head!""

"But his name was Fred!"

"Oh, a wise guy, eh?"

"Woob-woob-woob!"
posted by boo_radley at 4:57 PM on August 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

FPP title makes no sense.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:58 PM on August 12, 2010

God, I can just imagine the Hollywood pitches already: "A funeral story - with a TWIST!"
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:58 PM on August 12, 2010

Halloween Jack: "FPP title makes no sense."

It does if you're planning your own funeral.
posted by bwg at 4:59 PM on August 12, 2010

I predict this will be HUGE in Japan.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:59 PM on August 12, 2010

Also ...

Why did they bury the man in the side of the hill?

.
.
.

Because he was dead.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:01 PM on August 12, 2010

Considering the cost of regular caskets that do nothing, I can only imagine how much these will cost. I'm sure you'll be able to get them in chrome, silver, gold and teak with prices as low as $30,000. Personally, I like the way the tibetans deal with there dead. Drag the body outside of town, break it into pieces and let the vultures have at it. No wasted space or materials and the birds get a meal, everybody wins.
posted by doctor_negative at 5:05 PM on August 12, 2010

I'm gonna pass on this one.

Instead, please pound me into the ground in a coffin wedge.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 5:12 PM on August 12, 2010

> Personally, I like the way the tibetans deal with there dead. Drag the body outside of town, break it into pieces and let the vultures have at it. No wasted space or materials and the birds get a meal, everybody wins.

The process isn't that simple.

You know, cremation isn't that hard of a process either, and then you can get ashes that are fairly easy to spread, or what have you. And if a Ralph's is near by, it really isn't that expensive.
posted by mrzarquon at 5:13 PM on August 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

low cost interment methods with hermetic sealing

Sealed container, gases building up pressure, pointy metal duck ready to explode into the air...cemeteries are about to get a lot more interesting.
posted by mittens at 5:14 PM on August 12, 2010

Oh, I'm dead. Oh well, it was a good life. I'm at peace. I get to go to heaven and be with ... hey! OK, feet first, that's cool. Anyway, peace and re ... whoa, buddy! I guess I'm gonna face that tree. All right, I can watch it grow and change with the seaso ... whoa! Make up your mind there, friend. Which way am I gonna fac ... Hey! Whoa! Stop! I'm getting dizzy... oh God, it's a screw! A screw! Nooooo!
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:21 PM on August 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

The only problem with this is it ruins a pretty standard (I gather) symbolic situation: spouses with a joint plot laid out, resting together in eternity.

Well that's the plan, at least. What ended up happening for my bubby was a little different. Her husband had passed away when I was 3 or so, and she when I was about 15. Plot was reserved in the Orthodox cemetery, headstone all set, yadda yadda.

We have the funeral itself in the synagogue, which was not that great - she hadn't gone to shul in years, the cantor didn't know her and all that junk. Afterwards, we go to the cemetery, carry the coffin over, and the cemetery workers lower her into the ground. People start muttering behind me, but the close family is of course filling in the grave.

A minute later my cousin, 27, bursts out laughing. "They've put her in backwards", he says. "Just like they've always wanted. Together, forever, locked in a 69."
posted by Lemurrhea at 5:22 PM on August 12, 2010 [6 favorites]

The whole funeral industry confuses me, although I wouldn't mind being buried in a large fish or possibly handsaw I think I've decided on 'whatever is cheapest then buy beer thx'.
posted by shinybaum at 5:27 PM on August 12, 2010

Fig. 27 is adorable. I can think of few more unnerving things to come upon than fish and water fowl worshiping at the foot of a floating cross.
posted by griphus at 5:29 PM on August 12, 2010

I want to be cremated and thrown in the face of my arch nemesis, preferably by someone wearing a cape which they can then sweep dramatically in front of themselves as they shout "Revenge! From beyond the grave!"

Of course, I still need an arch nemesis.
posted by lucidium at 5:40 PM on August 12, 2010

I had a teacher in high school who always said he wanted his remains to be scattered over the school grounds when he died. Not cremated, just scattered!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 5:41 PM on August 12, 2010 [5 favorites]

This is especially appropriate for politicians and other charlatans who are so crooked they eat soup with a corkscrew.
posted by motown missile at 5:51 PM on August 12, 2010

"A clear plastic Easy Inter Burial Container, where the body is additionally encased in clear resin and is standing erect for all to view during installation, creates a very impressive image."

A sculpture by Michelangelo: a very impressive image

Gramps, embedded in plastic and spun into the ground like some sick rewind of the scene in "Mighty Joe Young" where the gorilla rises up from the stage on a spinning platform: not so impressive
posted by digsrus at 5:53 PM on August 12, 2010

Like I want to stand for eternity.

Bury Me Standing (for I have been on my knees too long.)
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:16 PM on August 12, 2010

I wonder the effect that gravity would have on the corpse over time. I can imagine some technical term being developed to describe the hollow thudding sound a spun grave makes when the body eventually collapses.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:22 PM on August 12, 2010

So many pundits, so little time.
posted by ~Sushma~ at 8:37 PM on August 12, 2010

There are places with a high water table that often have problems with coffins coming out of the ground. I'm looking at you, New Orleans. During a flood regular coffins lurch up out of the soil and then float like little boats, but that's because they're buried lengthways. This coffin, though ... this coffin ... I get the idea that this coffin would SHOOT up, pop out of the ground, and spinning wildly like a rifled bullet would launch into a graceful parabola over the cemetery before landing in a haze of compressed wood and pulped grandma.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:41 PM on August 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

can I have one that fires me back out 15 minutes after internment?
posted by hatefull at 9:50 PM on August 12, 2010

I recently discovered Eternal Reefs. Much cooler than getting screwed into the ground.
posted by bloody_bonnie at 10:03 PM on August 12, 2010

I had a teacher in high school who always said he wanted his remains to be scattered over the school grounds when he died. Not cremated, just scattered!

Disgruntled chemistry teacher?
posted by Tenuki at 10:07 PM on August 12, 2010

You could, like, go all out and make the coffins out of sequestered carbon and/or toxic waste wrapped in sequestered carbon wrapped in PETE, so that you were actually removing pollutants from the environment.

I guess you could argue that using any wood is sequestering carbon, but first generation mahogany !=, say, sawmill scraps.
posted by TomMelee at 8:03 AM on August 13, 2010

When I go, I want this, but like this.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:07 PM on August 16, 2010