I guess I have reached the age where the choice of a final resting place becomes more of a consideration. I’m leaning towards cremation. The problem is that cremation doesn’t solve the problem. What to do with the remains? Cremation just reduces the volume. Sure, there are fancy containers, like the urn pictured below.

Let me put storing one’s ashes in an urn into context. Go back to the sixth grade. Remember that trophy you won for some such shit? Where is it now? Yeah, your mom kept it and displayed it for a while. Chances are she tried to unload it on you after you set up light housekeeping. That trophy may have made it through two or three moves and your first divorce. Is it still with you?

Benign neglect is bad enough. There are other factors. The Smoking Gun documents just one possible scenario. According to the story, it seems that dear old mom was saddled not only with the remains of her parents but also an ungrateful child. When she got around to kicking his sorry ass out of the house, he repaid her kindness. He flushed his grandparents down the toilet.

http://thesmokinggun.com/documents/bizarre/ashes-get-flushed-482091

Burial at Sea is a time honored tradition. Mariner’s of old were sewed into their hammock with round shot at their feet and committed to the depths. Lacking a hammock, round shot, or a body, it is acceptable to scatter the ashes at sea, (above). The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania doesn’t not consider flushing said ashes down the toilet as a suitable substitute. The errant son has been charged with a variety of charges.

This story is sufficiently bizarre to attract my attention and could stand on its own, but…

I grew up watching Hawaii Five-O, the one with Jack Lord. It seems like every other week McGarrett was dipping his finger into a package, and then giving it a taste. He would then intone, “Book em Danno!” We later referred to this as the McGarrett field test.

Twenty years later I found myself looking at the suspicious contents of a package. Technology has replaced, if it ever existed, the McGarrett field test.

This leads me full circle back to bad things that can happen to one’s ashes. We executed a search warrant on the west side of San Antonio. We got into the house and secured the occupants. They were handcuffed and lined up on the couch. We were looking for Mexican heroin.

On TV, heroin is a white powdery substances. In south Texas, heroin ranges from a sticky black tar like substance to a lumpy brown powder. As the search progressed, one of the team found a container with about a kilo of Mexican brown heroin. High fives and celebration began. A kilo of Mexican brown was a hell of a hit! The uproar was such that the crook on the couch couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

The evidence tech submitted the substance to a variety of field tests, negative for heroin, nope not methamphetamine, desperation didn’t make it cocaine either. The back slapping and bragging lost some of its impetus. Finally, the crook on the couch could be heard, “Mi Madre!”

Well, it was Mexican and brown but not a controlled substance. We had to accept the the dozen pea sized balloons of heroin as a consolation prize.