LUCKY STIFFS

LD: I honestly became involved in this industry because I don't like people very much. I'm just not very social. Just stick me in the back with a dead person and leave me be. It also fascinates me. I get bored easily and with this job you never know what to expect.

CB: I wanted to be a Doctor, but I didn't have the time or the money to go to med school. So after college, I decided to go to Mortuary School.

G&C: Anti-Social + Short Attention Span= working with corpses. You know, that describes us at Girls and Corpses Magazine! Now for those of us that have never peeked in the back room at a mortuary, what typically happens to a body once it's brought in?

LD: Once a body is brought in, it's tagged and given a case number. Then, depending on the family's wishes, the body is embalmed, cleaned, dressed and casketed.

CB: Our is a little different. First we take the body off the stretcher and put it onto a metal prep table. We don't embalm because we're Jewish, so we call the local "Chevra Kadisha". The Chevra Kadisha is a group of very religious people who perform what is known as the "Tahara". A Tahara is the traditional Jewish washing ceremony of the deceased. Only women are allowed to wash women and only men are allowed to wash men. So I don't do any prepping really. I'm not even allowed in the room when a Tahara is being performed. After the Tahara is over, I set the features (closing the mouth with a suture, setting the eyes). I then dress the bodies, put them in their casket and then add cosmetics.

G&C: Have either of you ever encountered a weird or creepy situation at work?

LD: Hmmm...that's a hard one. One time I was on the computer and I heard moaning and talking in the cooler where the dead are kept. I was alone at the time, so I thought it was strange. I didn't want to open the cooler and find out what it was, so I left and went outside for a while.

CB: I had a similar situation happen to me. Usually I work alone with no one else in the building. One day I was in the prep room preparing a body and I heard a muffled scream right next to me. I stopped what I was doing, put the body back in the fridge, and bolted up the stairs!

G&C: Moaning and talking in the freezer where the dead are kept....sounds like the corpses are horny! Either that or you have some ghosts hanging around waiting to check out their own funeral. Speaking of which, ever see any weird or unusual funerals?

LD: I have never been to a funeral. I work in the back preparing the dead and besides, I don't think anyone would allow me at a funeral looking the way I do. I have heard stories of casket jumpers though. They're the people who jump into the caskets and try to "Wake Up" their loved one... it can get wild!

LD: Well at my funeral home, people are a little uptight. Sometimes the embalmer may nickname a body or make a little joke. At the medical examiners office, we had more fun. One time we had a guy on the table with webbed toes, so they called him Aqua Man. But in the funeral industry we always respect the dead.

CB: I agree. We do have a strange sense of humor though, and are often very cynical because it's the only way to deal with the job sometimes.

G&C: I read an interesting quote by Jacquie Taylor, President of the San Francisco College of Mortuary Science. According to her, Necrophilia is almost unheard of in her profession. What do you think? I bet when Marilyn Monroe was brought into the funeral home, someone later went home with workplace bragging rights! Let's cut to the chase, are morticians fucking corpses?

LD: Ha 'Ha...well, Ive never heard or seen it. It's easier for a guy to defile a corpse than it is for a girl. The cock stiffens from blood, so when a man dies, the cock goes soft. Also, there is no muscle to stiffen from rigor mortis. But, I do have to say if I had Tommy Lee roll in....I might try something..LOL.

G&C: Well, there's always the Trocar (a large hollow needle used to suction fluids from corpses). You could push it up inside a male cadaver's dick...instant hard on!

CB: Oh Hell no! I don't care how attractive the person was in life, corpses are not beautiful. Decomposition happens faster than most people think and certain things go bad really fast.

G&C: Is death sexy?

LD: NO NO NO...Death is not sexy at all. First off, you're lying on a table butt ass naked for all the world to see. Plus, the dead always have some weird expression on their face..it's just a very unnatural look.

CB: I have to agree. Death is neither sexy or romantic. It is mysterious and I suppose left to the imagination, it can be confused with sexiness...as with anything really.

G&C: What about hanky panky at work? Ever get jiggy in a coffin? I know you both must have had cemetery sex. Have you?

LD: Hmmm...well...Yes...quite a few times. I have had sex just about everywhere at a "previous" job. Let's see, on a tombstone, at my dispatch desk while trying to dispatch over the Nextel and of course, the cemetery. Most guys won't do that though, they think it's too strange.

G&C: We don't think it's strange! (hint hint)

CB: HA HA. Yes, I've done it quite a few times as well. But not with co-workers, that would be just disgusting.

G&C: Do you two feel that your choice of profession affects your personal life?

LD: In what way?

G&C: Well, as in meeting people for the first time. Do people shy away from you when they find out what you do for a living? Or, what about dating? Are guys cool with it or does it freak them out?

LD: Yes, absolutely, my choice of profession does affect my dating and social life. Guys think it's gross when they find out what I do, as do most people I meet. My ex used to complain about me smelling like death when I came home from work. He would give me a hug and then complain that the smell was in my hair. Some people seem curious, but when I talk about it, they think I'm some strange freak for doing what I do. Oh well, I love it.