Snot monitor at Disney World (and you thought your job was terrible)

I was reading yet another of those 'be afraid, be very afraid' articles on the H1N1 pandemic - my throat scratchy, my neck glands aching, through every last word. (Did that person on the other side of the street just cough? Thoughtless bastard should be wearing a surgical mask and staying the hell home.)

This one was in the NY Times, scheduled for this coming Sunday, but through the miracle of modern technology, available in the now. It talked about how theme parks just might be breeding grounds for the flu.

There are, apparently,

Disney fans’ discussion boards are buzzing about the fears of transmission and whether some people are putting their fellow vacationers at risk.

Fear and hang-wringing - once those hands have been cleansed with Purell - are not limited to Disney. All theme parks are viewed as germ vectors of the highest order.

Bad enough that there's a recession on, but having to worry about catching your death on "Pirates of the Caribbean" or a "Flying Dumbo".....

No wonder that theme park management is all over this.

Disney has ordered over 200,000 hand sanitizers for Disney World, which will be located throughout the park. Probably a reasonable precaution. I went to the 60th b-day party for an old friend's husband recently. It was held at a roller-rink, and there were quart pump-jugs of hand sanitizer all over the place.

Disney is, of course, pretty high on cleanliness to begin with. Forget the happiest place on earth, how about the most clean-compulsive place on there. I remember my first trip to Disney Land, and the amazing number of employees walking around with dustpans and brooms. They almost seemed individually assigned to stalk each "guest".

But there are more important things to focus on than whether some cad drops a gum wrapper.

...visitors who display serious symptoms can be referred to a park’s first-aid center for medical assistance.

How'd you like to be the person charged with approaching someone displaying "serious symptoms" and referring them on. Why do I smell law suit here? ("We paid a kabillion dollars for this dream trip, and I don't need some smiley-faced, snot-nosed kid pointing out my snot nosed kid. My Hortense, in fact, suffers from chronic runny-nose-itis, and she's no sicker than the guy in the Goofy costume.")

And, speaking of the guy in the Goofy costume:

If a sick child uses, say, Goofy’s costume as a tissue, a handler (one of the employees who act as the eyes and ears of the characters in costume) can instruct the character to change into a fresh costume.

Now there's a job I wasn't aware of: handler for the costumed character. Wonder if they take turns, or whether someone always has to play the straight guy. Wonder if they get to work with different characters, or whether a handler develops a specialty: princess-only; Donald and Daisy, but not Minnie and Mickey.

Personally, I'd rather be the handler, on the outside looking in, than a character. As a handler, my character preference would be another story. Would it be better to work with a smiling, simpering, princess, or have to put up with Mickey, Donald, or Goofy voice in your ear all day?

And to think that one of the handler's job responsibilities is checking whether some kid blew his nose into, or smeared her ice cream all over, Mickey's shorts or Snow White's pretty little vest.

Of course, germ vectors move both ways, and, as much as theme park patrons may beware walking into a perfect flu brew, how about the workers. Especially those in costume. (That handler job is looking better and better, isn't it? At least no little tyke is trying to hug or kiss you.)

A "travel health expert at the C.D.C." - now there's another interesting specialization - thinks that worrying about theme parks "might be overblown." Dr. Phyllis Kozarsky siad:

“To single out Disneyland and Disney World is not appropriate with regard to transmission of H1N1,” she said in an e-mail message. “There are too numerous to count opportunities for people to be in close spaces together, whether in movie theaters, in crowded shopping malls, on public transportation as well as during most individuals’ daily activities.”

Those daily activities - those are the ones that'll get you every time. Especially if your daily activities include donning a Cinderella costumer and hugging a couple of hundred enraptured pre-schoolers. Yes, that handler job is looking better and better all the time. Better to be a snot monitor than a snot monitee.

Leader of the Laundromat

How well I remember my first trip to the laundromat.

My friend Bernadette's family washing machine was broken, so her mother asked us to take a couple of loads over to Pat's Laundromat, conveniently located across Eureka Street from the Lees' house.

We started up the first load, and then realized that we hadn't put the detergent in. Undaunted, we opened the washing machine - a front loader, of course - so we could throw in the Tide. Which we did manage to accomplish, more or less, but not before nearly flooding Pat's Laundromat.

I probably had little use for laundromats again until I got an apartment when I was in college, and had to do my wash in the laundromat on Queensberry Street.

From there on out, until we bought our condo in 1991, I was a laundromat user. Often, we'd schlepp our laundry in, start it up, then head to a neighborhood restaurant. I'd pop out mid-meal to get the dryers going, and by the time we were finished, so was the laundry.

I actually kind of enjoy the laundromat experience. a) I like doing laundry to begin with. b) There is something intensely satisfying about getting 4-5 loads done simultaneously.

When we got our condo, there was a teeny little room with a laundry hookup in it. There was also a communal (and free) washer and dryer in the basement.

It didn't take me more than 3 seconds to decide that the teeny room would be my office, and the communal set up would be my laundry area.

There are only 6 condos in the building, and one has its own laundry, so it generally works out pretty well in terms of availability.

Of course, everyone in the building is not as observant and thoughtful as I am about making sure that once through the spin cycle, a load doesn't just languish there. Or as conscientious about cleaning the dryer filter. Or as knowledgeable about overloading. (There's a couple of young MIT grads in our building. You'd think they'd be able to figure out that if you take up every available bit of cubic space in the dryer with sopping wet towels, there's no air circulating, so those sopping wet towels won't dry.) Or as knowledgeable about underloading: we used to have an OCD guy living in the building who would use the washing machine at 4 o'clock in the morning to run a full load containing one pair of socks or a single dish towel.

As a result, I do a lot of laundry-tending and note leaving. (Good thing I like doing laundry.)

In some sense, all of this makes me supremely qualified to own and operate a laundromat, which was the topic of an article in yesterday's Journal.

The article focused on coin-op laundries because it was "thought to be impervious to recessions such as self-storage facilities and car washes," and - thus - was attractive to ousted wage slaves who, when they got pink slipped, vowed 'never again.'

A laundromat makes an attractive business for a number of reasons. First, pretty much everyone, by the time they're in their early twenties, has at least some experience with the core function, and some direct knowledge of the environment itself.

Plus,it's thought to be pretty much recession proof. Clothing has a way of getting dirty, linens get grubby, and very few people resort to washing their sheets in the tub, using a scrub board.

Apparently this recession is somewhat challenging the notion of recession proof, as some will be doing their laundry at mom's (probably after they've moved back in with her), and, in immigrant communities, a lot of the clientele has left the country, at least pro tem. (In the Journal article, the clientele gone missing in one neighborhood are referred to as 'vanishing Hispanics,' which kind of sounds like a magic act.)

Still, there are upsides. As the WSJ points out, while start up costs aren't trivial in terms of buying an operation, there's no inventory to worry about (beyond making sure that the vending machines have those handy little packets of detergent and dry bleach for those who come without their own). And, best of all, there's no problem with receivables - it's all purely pay as you go.

But before you head to the google to see about buying a laundromat for yourself, please note that, while interest in becoming laundromat moguls is high, the credit squeeze is making financing harder to come by.

If you do find your way in, you should know that:

About 70% of laundry owners in America are single-shop operators, and 20% operate only two, limited economies of scale having discouraged the rise of dominant national chains.

This is until Walmart finds some way to expand into the biz, I suppose.

The coin laundry represents a $5 billion-a-year industry of about 35,000 stores. "You can operate one of the best laundries in the country by yourself and for yourself," says Mr. Wallace.

I like that thought.

My laundromat would have book-swap shelves, for all the books I have read that no one else wants; for all the books I haven't read that no one else wants; and for the books I began, but just couldn't get that far into.

It would have decent, non-fluorescent, reading lamps, and plastic (they're practical) chairs in colors other than tangerine and aqua, colors that were apparently established as the laundromat chair tones sometime during the 1950's or early 1960's.

Although I would rather have my laundromat be a reading room, I would probably have wi-fi. (I would be careful to monitor things to make sure that consultants didn't hang out all day just to cadge wi-fi without ever throwing a load in. I would also enforce the 'no throwing an occasional quarter in an empty dryer' rule to keep said consultants from appearing to be doing laundry. Mean spirited, I know, but....)

I would run gratis 'how to do laundry' sessions for laundry neophytes, demonstrating the proper use of bleach and proven folding techniques.

I would have a snack vending machine, but would not encourage having any potable liquids on prem, since I wouldn't want to feel obligated to have a toilet.

My laundromat would have a juke-box, but no piped in muzak. And I would get to pick the selections.

One of which would, of course, be "Leader of the Laundromat," a mid-1960's hit by The Detergents, that parodied the mega-hit Shangri-la's hit "Leader of the Pack," which would also be available. (Vroom, vroom.)

Now they're telling us a Bombers' win is good for the economy. Damn Yankees!

Monday night, I was delighted to see the Philadelphia Phillies dig in, man up, and win a do or die game in the World Series. They may, of course, have merely staved off what seems inevitable: a Yankees win.

A Yankees win.

Blecchhh.

As an American League fan growing up when the Red Sox were cellar-dwellers and the World Series meant the Yankees, I was an October-only Yankees fan as a child. But that changed when the Red Sox became a contender, and the last time I rooted for the Yankees to win was in 2001, when they were America's Team and should, by rights and corny story-telling, have won it all.

That was then and this is now, so it's boo, hiss, Yankees, buying their way to contention and beyond with a checkbook as big as the Empire State Building.

Their 2009 payroll was $201 million, surpassing the next in line NY Mets' paltry $135 million. What better metaphor for the overall American rise of the super-rich and decline of the middle class?

Not that the middle class has no chance. It can be argued that the Phillies, with a $113 million payroll that places them 7th among the 30 MLB teams, is (upper) middle class. (In case you're wondering, the Olde Towne Team ranked 4th at $122 million - a hefty amount, but one dwarfed by the big spenders in pin stripes. Source for payroll info: ESPN.)

But a conversation on relative baseball spends, and America's lurch into banana republic status, will have to wait.

The topic du jour is an amusing article in the WSJ that argued that history shows us that if the Yankees win the Series, the economy will hum back to life in 2010. However, if the Phillies win, the economy will remain in dire straits.

The Groundhog Day argument is, admittedly, specious, but it's still fun.

Since 1930, the Yankees...have been a harbinger of average of 5% GDP growth in years following a series victory, healthy by any measure. In years in which the Yankees didn’t win the World Series (either they lost or didn’t make it) U.S. output expanded at an unspectacular 2.9%.

Win or lose, just an appearance by that Yankees in the World Series seems to foretell the next year’s growth. The economy grew an average of 4% in years after the Yankees lost the World Series. We’d also note that the last time the Yankees played the Phillies in the World Series (the Yankees won in four games) the economy grew a robust 7.7% the following year.

On the other hand, while the Phillies have a far skimpier World Series record to draw on, their victories in 2008 and 1980 foretold paltry (2.5% in 1981) or even negative (2009 numbers aren't in yet, but they'll be lousy) growth. When the Phillies lose, however, growth averages 5% in the subsequent year - same as with a Yankees win.

I really don't like where this 'head's I win, tails you lose' story is going.

Who wants to feel that it's a matter of economic patriotism to root for the Yankees? Talk about 'lie back and think of England.' No thanks.

Post hoc, of course, doesn't necessarily translate into  propter hoc. Although, as WSJ "Numbers Guy" Carl Bialik observed,

“Perhaps the Yankees thrive in years in which their rate of outspending other teams surges, and that their investments stimulate the economy. Or they only outspend when their staff economists forecast economic growth.”

Something to think about, anyway, in those breaks between pitches when I want to tune out Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.

But I do not buy the argument that what's good for the Yankees is good for the country.

For the duration I will keep calm and carry on, cheering for the Phillies to take it all. (Go, Pedro!)

Executive pensions on the rise - whew, am I ever relieved

Just when you think you'll never hear anything jolly out of corporate America, today's Wall Stree Journal brings the heartening news that executive pensions rose last year by nearly 20%. And for the most highly skilled and valuable, pensions rose by a well-deserved 50%. (Access to the full article may require a subscription, or picking a paper subscription off the vestibule floor of your building, which is where the ones that get delivered to my building end up. I recycle them.)

Will I ever sleep better tonight, or what?

Because I want to share the wealth, or, rather information about the wealth, I'm lifting the WSJ's chart, so that you can see some of the details for yourself, and rejoice in your own modest way that the pension liability for the top 4-6 executives of GE is $140.7 billion. Yes, unless there's a typo, we're talking billions. I know, I known, there are more than 4-6 top executives - that's a rolling number. There may be 100 or so top 4-6 executives, all deserving post-executive suite compensation that reflects the fact that "share prices at the companies declined an average of 37% in 2008 and many firms froze employee pensions and suspended retirement-plan contributions."

(Question to self: can BILLIONS be right? Can I believe my own eyes and/or the typesetter at the WSJ?)

Anyway,I'm not working full-time any more, and I never worked at GE to begin with (as if), but I, for one, think it's alrighty that GE's top guns will get to share $140.7 large ones. And that the boys from BofA can belly up to the $63.2B bar.

Way to go!

Who's more deserving of comfort in their old age? Who better to have a decent place to lay their weary head after all those taxing - metaphorically speaking - years of being executives?

Hey, I was an executive in a 50 person company for a few years, and, brother, they were dog years. The three or four years I was on the management team were more like 21-28 years. Unfortunately, the dog-year-i-ness is not reflected in the pension that I'll be getting once I hit 67 from the company that finally acquired us and put us out of our misery. I managed to hang on a year or so under the new regime, so I'll be getting a cool $300/month (if I round the figure up).

I recognize that I'm no Jack Welch, and, commensurately speaking, I'm sure he's worth a billion times more than I am.

Pensions are, of course, tied to overall compensation - fair's fair, no?

Big bonuses, especially in the final years of executives' tenure, boosted some top executive pensions substantially, filings show. One of Exxon Mobil Corp.'s two supplemental pension plans for executives uses the three highest bonuses in the five years prior to retirement to calculate the executive's pension. Thanks to this, a $4 million bonus to CEO Rex Tillerson in 2008 helped push the total value of his pension to $31 million from $23 million.

An Exxon spokeswoman pointed out that the proxy states that "by limiting bonuses to those granted in the five years prior to retirement, there is a strong motivation for executives to continue to perform at a high level."

I get where Exxon's coming from. Wouldn't want those guys to slack off once they could see those retirement years on the horizon. Wouldn't want 'em sitting around, feet up on the desk, looking at property on golf courses in Naples, Florida, and calculating whether their Social Security check will cover greens fees.

Nope, the world - and capitalism - was much better served by their spending those sunset years figuring out what metrics to use this year to calculate their bonus (pi times the number of cars in the company parking lot on an average day, divided by 1/10 of the decimal portion of the stock price at its trough, as long as on that date, the decimal portion was also at its trough - unless it was zero). And back-scratching their board of directors into writing the check.

Reaching a milestone birthday also can enhance an executive's pension. Altria Group Inc. CEO Michael E. Szymanczyk's pension rose when he turned 60 last year, triggering a subsidy built into the pension formula, boosting its total value to $23.5 million.

Mr. Szymanczyk benefited from an early retirement subsidy, a feature widely used in employee pensions in the 1980s and 1990s. The subsidy, which typically kicks in when a worker reaches age 55 or 60, enables him to retire with the same pension benefit he would have received if he remained on the job until age 65. The subsidies were intended to encourage older workers to retire.

Well, I, too, am reaching a milestone birthday in just a few weeks. If there's anyone out there who would like to encourage this older worker to retire, I've got two words for you: subsidy welcome.

'When you're lost in the rain in Juarez, and it's Christmastime, too' (Bob Dylan's got "Christmas in the Heart.")

It's almost that time of year when I pull out my Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Judy Collins, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Leon Redbone (what was I thinking), and the half-dozen or so other Christmas CD's I own, and start playing away.

I wasn't planning on adding to my collection, when an ad in The New Yorker caught my eye.

Bob Dylan's just released a Christmas Album.

Say what?

My first thought was, has Bobby jumped the shark, errrrrr, reindeer. When did this happen?

Sure, I was a fan back in the day, and I do occasionally put on some of the Bob albums - Freewheelin', Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde on Blonde, Greatest Hits, Nashville Skyline -  I listened to so frequently in the 60's and 70's that all I need to do is queue up one note and I can take the entire album solo from there. But I really haven't paid him much attention in years - make that decades - other than to note at one point that he was doing corporate events. Positively Wall Street. Sigh.

Of course, the times, they are a changin', and Bob Dylan is nearing 70. Maybe he wants to entertain his grandkids. Maybe he just wants to do something for charity (proceeds from sales go to a charity called Feeding America). And maybe it's a case of he just wanted to, and because of who he is, he just can.

Anyway, rather than just take potshots at the new album, I thought I'd go out and buy it. (With a Borders coupon, it was less than $10. A man in a coonskin cap... wants eleven dollar bills. You only got ten.)

The first thing that leaps out is the sheer kitsch-i-ness of the front and back covers - and the fact that, aesthetically, and even thematically, they don't really connect.

On the front is the Currier & Ives, over-the-river-and-through-the-woods sleigh ride scene. Hurrah for the pumpkin pie, and all that, but I would have liked it better if Bob had given us a bit of a wink here, and had himself driving the sleigh.

Maybe he's one of the three wise men on the back cover. Maybe the other two are Hurricane Carter and John Wesley Harding. But forget for a moment who might be gathering no moss on those camels. Would this not have been in the running for "worst Christmas card received" in 1961? It certainly would have in my family, where we sent (and received) a couple of hundred Christmas cards each year. (It helped to have a bunch of kids to address them, seal the envelopes, and lick the stamps.) Cards received spent their first year as decoration, taped around doorways. They spent their second year as tags on Christmas presents. But this one! Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison aside, blue and Christmas just don't particularly go together.  Perhaps this is a nod to Bob's Jewish heritage. Whatever. It's one hideous Christmas card. (And, would the Star in the East be glowing quite this brightly, and the sky still be so dark, if the sun were that far up?)

So Dylan went secular on the front, and religious on the back. But what was really interesting was his stocking stuffer: the naughty Vargas Girl on the inside cover. Say what? Has Bob completely gone of his gourd? I would expect to find this in Playboy, or on the calendar in some dad's basement workroom in, say, 1965. But not in an album entitled Christmas in the Heart, authored by none other than Bob Dylan. Talk about Santa, Baby.

But its the music that makes the album, right? And the music on this one is downright weird. Not that you expect Bob Dylan to ever sound as if he's enjoying himself, but if he were going to, might it not be on a Christmas album?

Hell, no. Other than on a Tex-Mex "Must Be Santa," I don't really get much emotion out of the songs. In fact, they all pretty much sound like parodies of Dylan - as if someone had the zany idea of stringing together a bunch of Christmas songs - a mish-mash combo of sacred and profane - and performing them in full Dylan voice (backed by a sweet-sounding, ethereal girl group).

The diction, especially, suggests parody.

Hark the Heeeeer-illled Angels sing.

And that "Venite Ador-ay-moose"? Bob sure didn't take Latin from Sister Daniel Vincent, or learn the words to "Adeste Fideles" listening to Der Bingl.

Then there's the pronunciation of Christ. Now, I've heard Kee-riced plenty of times, and Cry-iced, but Cry-eeest the Lord? That was a first.

So I probably won't be listening to this album with any regularity. Although I will drag it out on Christmas Eve, and play a few tunes. Maybe I can squeeze in "Must be Santa" between Bing's "Christmas in Killarney," and the 'een sisters' a capella version of "Good King Wenceslas".

But if I were to lose this CD, I would not be suffering any subterranean homesick blues over it, that's for sure.

Sean Fitzpatrick: Carving out an interesting career

As I've maintained on many occasions, even in the midst of a painful recession, this remains something of an infinite economy in terms of people with a decent idea and some drive being able to carve out a career for themselves in an awful lot of different areas.

This was brought home a week or so ago, when I saw an interview in The Boston Globe with a local fellow, Sean Fitzpatrick, who does pumpkin carving and ice, sand, snow, and foam sculpting for a living.

Twenty years ago, Fitzpatrick was an auto mechanic whose daughter asked him to make her a snowman that looked like Santa. He decided he loved it, and spent the next decade refining his skills and figuring out how to make a business out of it. Today, that business, FitzySnowman, is a true money-making, make a living business. Fitzpatrick does custom carving/sculpting for corporations and special events, runs seminars and festivals all over the country, and does team building for companies. He's got a pretty impressive client list that includes big names like Staples, Fidelity, Liberty Mutual, and Comcast. And, oh, yeah, Hooters. (Wonder what they sculpted?)

When I think of all the lame-o, no fun team-building events I participated in over the years - not one of which ever seemed to tap anything I was any good at or enjoyed - I can certainly see the appeal of working with Fitzpatrick.

Rather than learn how to build a model helicopter out of straws, or write an execute a cheer, or sit back to back with someone I barely knew sharing out innermost wishes for the business, I sure wish I could have learned something useful like  how to build a better snowman. (I may not be any good at it, but I do have a lot of experience with the basics: Roll the big ball, roll the medium ball and put it on the big ball, roll the small ball and use it for the head. Carrot nose, rocks for eyes  - now that no one heats with coal. Etc.)

Note to corporations considering hiring Fitzy Snowman: he's clear that, if you go with the ice sculpting option, no chain saws will be used. In general this is as excellent a workplace rule as any I'm familiar with.

Fitzpatrick is something of a natural marketer - Fitzy Showman, as it were - who's been all over TV, radio, and the press. (Not to mention at least one modest blog.)

Since tomorrow is Halloween, those who are going to carve pumpkins have probably already done so. But if you haven't, here are some tips from the master, by way of The Globe:

Make sure the pumpkin walls are about an inch thick. A standard ice cream scoop is good for getting the seeds out. . . . For the design, you can draw directly on the pumpkin. Or, go online and print out a template. Attach it to the pumpkin with packing tape and use a poking tool to poke holes through the design into the pumpkin. The holes should be a quarter-inch deep and close enough together so you can cut through them in a line. . . . Adults can use a sharp knife and cut along the pattern, starting in the center. When you take the paper off, there is a clear, sharp pattern. To preserve your pumpkin once you’re done, take a plastic Brillo pad and wipe the front surface to get the rough edges off. Then, spray the inside and design area with a cooking spray to help it retain moisture.

Last time I carved a pumpkin, I'd completed my hack job before the kid I was carving it with informed me that the pumpkin was upside down. (Thanks, Sam.) And if you don't think it makes a distance, you've never carved a pumpkin upside down.

I will not be carving a pumpkin this year, but I will be walking around Beacon Hill, which is rather a good Halloween venue: brick sidewalks, gas lamps, old houses, lots of wrought iron - and a lot of folks who go to town decorating and, yes, pumpkin carving. There should be lots of interesting Jack-o-Lanterns out there - maybe even some approaching Fitzpatrick caliber.

And while I know it's become customary for adults to dress up on Halloween, I won't be doing so. The last time I went in costume, many long years ago, I went to a party at my sister Kath's, dressed as a "hip nun." I wore clunky shoes, ugly suntan panty hose, a dowdy skirt and blouse, and a cross I made out of a shoe-polished dowel and some rawhide. I had on some rimless glasses that had been my mother's as a girl, and topped my ensemble off with a short blue veil.

The costume was too good.

When I introduced myself as Kathleen's sister Maureen, people took that to be "Sister Maureen." Whenever I walked by anyone drinking, smoking, or making out, I got an apology. ("Sorry, Sister.") Completely no fun - spooky, even -  that people thought I was such an authentic nun.

Tomorrow night, I will be going out as late middle-aged blogger: black turtle neck and black pants. Maybe I'll throw on a beret and use eyebrow pencil to draw a goatee. That way I can go as a beatnik. (Snap, snap.) Yeah, that's it. I'm going as a beatnik. Hope I score some Butterfingers.

Happy Halloween.

Shop 'til you drop at Walmart

Wouldn't you know it, Walmart - always looking out for the consumer - doesn't just want us to save money/live better. They want us to save money/die better, too.  Well, not exactly die better - as far as I know they're not (yet) selling Dr. Kevorkian Kits or End-of-Life drug supplies. But they are in the funerary business, big time.

I got wind of this in an AP article in yesterday's Globe, which reported that the good folks in Bentonville "quietly put up about 15 caskets and dozens of urns on its Web site last week."

This is not exactly a breakthrough. Costco, apparently, has already beaten them to the punch.

Naturally, I had to trek over to the ur(n) source and see for myself what was on offer, and was surprised that there were so many urn choices. Who knew there were so many different pet urns available? And in different sizes, by pet weight. There are different sizes for humans, too.  Heartbreakingly, some urns are child-sized. (Although I don't have children of my own, I do believe that the worst thing that can happen to someone is the death of a child. But to me, the grief would be compounded by having to go online - Walmart, Costco, wherever - and click on a child urn selection. Some things are best left to the professionals, and I'd put purchasing an urn or casket for a child in this category.)

Most of the urns are (surprisingly enough) tasteful.

Some do have goofy names. Why would one call an urn a "Keepsake"?This strikes me as somewhat trivializing. Why not a bibelot?

And the "Sunrise Treasure Deluxe Memorial Chest with Urn". Ah, yes, what a treasure chest for someone - full of granny's ashes. And sunrise? Duh? I don't think the poem goes 'do not go gentle into that good sunrise.' Aren't we talking the ultimate nightfall here?

There aren't as many caskets as there are urns (and no pet caskets), but there was a reasonable selection (including a wide body model).

The caskets that I looked at all "contain memory tube", whatever that is. (Okay, I went to The Google and the memory tube is a sealed tube in which you can put in information on the deceased. For what purpose, I don't know. I really can't imagine that, in 2000 years, anyone will find it all that fascinating to unearth one of 2000 Joe Blows buried in the municipal cemetery.  Today's average casket buyer is not exactly Imhotep. But, then again, I must remind myself that funeral matters are for those left behind, so if tucking in a tube full of stroll down memory lane info works, why not.)

My favorite casket name was the "Lovely in All Ways Stainless Steel Casket." Well, yes, lovely in all ways until a couple of years out when demented Uncle Bub starts talking about having poisoned the late Aunt Flora, and you have to do a bit of an exhumation. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust takes a while if you don't cremate. A long while. There's a lot of gucky stuff happening in the meantime that is in no way "lovely in all ways."

Other names I liked included the "Supreme Distinction". I hadn't realized that death was much of a supreme distinction. Not in the same way that, say, living forever might be.  Then there was the "Executive Privilege", which comes not only with that ubiquitous memory tube, but also sports a "hand-knit silver velvet interior." Hand-knit? Hmmmmmm.

All of this is no different than you'd find in any funeral parlor, I'm quite sure. And, frankly, on the taste scale, I didn't find anything that compared to the emerald green casket with shamrock insert that was on display at the funeral parlor when we went to pick out my mother's casket. (We took a pass on that one. Too garish, too costly, and my mother was only Irish by marriage and motherhood.)

Before you go running off to buy a casket at Wally, I will warn you that they take 48 hours to ship, at which point they FedEx them. This puts it beyond the time frame that would work for most of the wakes and funerals I've been in on, unless, of course, you pre-purchased.

I can (and do) live without it, but Walmart really is America's general store, isn't it?