It was Monday. Was it ever Monday. It was the Monday from the flaming theological nether regions, so much so that three of the four of us occupying bookkeeping had gotten a little giddy. Ok. A lot giddy. In the course of our descent into ridiculousness, my daughter mentioned that at Disney World they occasionally have to stop the Pirates of the Caribbean ride to clean the cremated remains out of the machinery (I have no idea how that worked its way into the conversation, so please don’t ask). It seems that sometimes folks thought it a good idea to have an unauthorized scattering and it usually gunked up the works. She learned this while attending a national funeral directors’ convention at the park; the Disney Institute conducted one of the sessions and mentioned it in passing. Upon being asked why they just didn’t open a scattering garden (as in a specific spot where cremated remains could be scattered without bringing something to a grinding halt . . . literally . . .), they responded, “Well, we probably would if we could figure out how to fit it into our brand, but we’re supposed to be the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’. How, exactly, does a garden filled with deceased human remains—even if they are reduced to ashes—fit into that?”

Having now lost all concept of reality—and in an effort to help the Disney folks out—we began to brainstorm about how to fit a cremation scattering garden into Walt Disney World and it still meet all the Disney criteria. It was my daughter, the consummate Disney aficionado, who put forth the first, and perhaps best, suggestion. I probably should mention that both she and I would live in Disney World if given the opportunity. I have often said that when my children didn’t need me anymore (as in grown and with families of their own . . . which is now) and my husband was dead (which is not now), I would move to Disney World and live in the castle. In exchange for my lodging, I would happily move plants around all night long after the park closed. But that’s beside the point.

She proposed that it be patterned after Hades in the movie “Hercules”(I should probably mention here that the Hades of Greek mythology, from which the story of Hercules sprang, is not the equivalent of that flaming nether region to which I referred earlier. It was the place where all the dead “lived”), and I chimed in that only those with ashes to scatter would be allowed in the area. She added they would have to pay the ferryman—after much debate as to what this person is actually called—for passage across the river Styx with the coins that were once placed on the eyes of the dead (did you know that’s why they did that? The dead needed the fare to cross the river Styx which formed the boundary between earth and the underworld—and which was not named after the band; I think it’s the other way around. Otherwise, their souls were doomed to wander the banks of the river for all eternity). Once across, they could scatter the ashes wherever they chose with no fear of being ejected from the park for clogging up some ride’s mechanism.

If that didn’t work, they could always replicate the elephant graveyard from The Lion King.

Now absolutely none of that had anything to do with what we were actually trying to accomplish, which was basically just to keep our heads above water. But our brains were on overload and we needed that moment of insanity so we could put our noses back to the grindstone. In case you don’t already know, there are circumstances—and days—when the only way you can survive is to laugh, and you find it where you can, no matter how small. After all, as we have stated before, the beloved Erma Bombeck reminded us if we could laugh at it, we could live with it, whether it’s work or life or death. And by the way, Disney . . . you’re welcome.

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