Ask a mortician

LittleHearseDriver

I'm a licensed funeral director and embalmer at a small family-owned funeral home in Tennessee. If there is anything you are dying to know, ask away.

Alatariel75

I've always been fascinated, ever since I watched My Girl as a kid. How did you get into that line of work?

ClubSilencio

What's the #1 song on the funeral home playlist?

Have you ever had to work on someone you knew personally?

Do you ever eat your lunch there in the funeral home?

concavenotconvex

Oh! Don't know if you would know, but when the obese are cremated do they chop the body parts to make them fit? I've heard crematoriums have burned down because the dead were just too fat and fit improperly.

Second question: what's the smell like?

Final question: do you ever use the corpses as puppets? Like I get they're dead and stuff, but the living don't have to be so morbid.

Motorsheen

When dictating my last will and testament, I told the attorney that instead of cremation or burial, I wanted to be beer battered and deep fried.

Would you do this for me?

LittleHearseDriver

@Alatariele My grandfather was a genealogist. during the Summers when I would go to visit him he would drag me around to the local cemeteries. I would go from headstone to headstone and calculate the ages of the people that died. Then I would wonder what they look like after being dead for so long. I guess you could say I was a strange little kid. In high school I had two friends who were murdered and they looked horrible at their funerals. I thought to myself I could do better than that and that's when I decided that is what I wanted to do.

@ClubSilencio Go Rest High on the Mountian by Vince Gill is the most popular hands down. The weirdest song I've ever heard at a funeral was I'm Sexy and I Know It by LMFAO I've taken care of elderly people from my church, but no family or friends yet (thank goodness.) I bring my lunch to work all the time. Eating out is expensive! I eat in the kitchen of course, not the embalming room.

Motorsheen

Are you hiring?

beagletracks

Do you fear death?

Karb_Kween

Do you get choked up looking at dead people? Not crying but seeing a dead frozen body in front of you? Also what do you think? Do you make jokes sometimes at their expense? Do you have trouble with certain types of bodies .. I can ask questions all day

beagletracks

What's the most interesting thing you've found lodged inside a body cavity?

LittleHearseDriver

@thesunmoonandstars the best part of my job is when a family looks me in the eye and thanks me for making the hardest time of their life easier. the worst part of my job is when families act like an episode of Jerry Springer. I am in the process writing a book about my experiences. sometimes when I'm at work by myself I hear someone coughing but I have never seen anything. the cost of funerals & cremations vary by location. for example at my job are average funeral cost $5,200 and 50 miles away in Nashville the average funeral starts at $10,000. they do the exact same thing that we do, they just charge more. corporate owned funeral homes are generally much pricier than local mom-and-pop funeral homes. my advice would be to shop around and to prepay for your funeral or cremation. you can make monthly payments on it for up to 60 months.

Motorsheen

LittleHearseDriver wrote: »

@thesunmoonandstars the best part of my job is when a family looks me in the eye and thanks me for making the hardest time of their life easier. the worst part of my job is when families act like an episode of Jerry Springer. I am in the process writing a book about my experiences. sometimes when I'm at work by myself I hear someone coughing but I have never seen anything. the cost of funerals & cremations vary by location. for example at my job are average funeral cost $5,200 and 50 miles away in Nashville the average funeral starts at $10,000. they do the exact same thing that we do, they just charge more. corporate owned funeral homes are generally much pricier than local mom-and-pop funeral homes. my advice would be to shop around and to prepay for your funeral or cremation. you can make monthly payments on it for up to 60 months.

Do you do layaway?

I'm on a budget.

LittleHearseDriver

@concavenotconvex No, we do not cut up obese people. Most retorts (crematories) can hold people up to a 600 lbs pounds and they make one that can hold 1,000 lbs. I have never had an issue getting someone into the retort. The burning process last 2-4 hours. Obese people do take longer to create than average size folks. P. S. Puppets are creepy! I don't play with the dead. I make sure I treat everyone with dignity and respect.

@Motorsheen If it's legal in Tennesse , I would be honored to batter you in beer and toss you in the frier Sorry we aren't hiring, but try your local funeral home;)

Motorsheen

LittleHearseDriver wrote: »

@Motorsheen If it's legal in Tennesse , I would be honored to batter you in beer and toss you in the frier Sorry we aren't hiring, but try your local funeral home;)

it's Tennessee...

it's legal.

ninerbuff

How long does it take to cremate a body? Also have you ran into any necrophiliacs yet?

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

LittleHearseDriver

@LiftingLady5 I have never seen anything, but I do hear someone coughing when I am there alone sometimes. I guess someone is trying to keep me on my toes. I've never been scared or uncomfortable.

@peppermintpudgy Somedays thinking about my own death scares me and other times it doesn't bother me at all. I think I worry more about facing God on judgement day more than anything. The weirdest thing I have found in a body was some sort of pump a guy had implanted in his penis. I don't know if it was to help him get it up or what

LittleHearseDriver

@GnothiSeauton23 Caskets are not comfortable at all. There "mattress" is a 3 inch piece of foam rubber. You won't catch me sleeping in one. I never have and never will.

@ninerbuff The cremation process take 2-4 hours then it take an addition 6 hours for the ashes to cool off enough to put into a temporary urn

@Karb_Kween Being around the dead isn't the hard part, it is the living. Seeing the dead doesn't bother me a bit. After doing it for 5 years, I am used to it. I have only cried twice at work. One was at a double funeral for a father and son. the son died from a brain aneurysm and the father was so heartbroken over his death that he had a heart attack 2 Days Later on the day of his funeral. we cancelled the service and had a double funeral for them both a few days later. The second time I cried was when a preacher read the suicide note of a 17 year old boy who had hung himself in his parents barn. He said in the note that he didn't want his brothers to turn out like him. It broke my heart to see his mom screaming his name as she walked up to the casket to see him one last time.