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I don't generally see any humor in something when it involves death, especially of a beloved pet, but this tale includes an interesting trail of events, that bares telling.  So without further a-deaux, I present: Death on the Hilltop . . . We moved from Texas to Missouri last June; we also moved my parents, who are in their mid-80's, who were living with us in Texas, as well.  My parents inhabit a bedroom and bathroom in the basement, which walks out onto a balcony (yes, off of the basement); the balcony ends, where the slope of the hill that we live on descends at a 45-degree angle, down into a deep gully that goes on for about 3 acres.  The balcony is where my dad's dog Curley lived in an Igloo doghouse complete with heated sleeping pad for the cold winter months. 

Curley was a short-haired, Border Collie, and could stand on his hind legs and look me in the eye; he could do the same to my dad which would dwarf my dad's 5' 6" thin frame.  When he did this to anyone else, my dad would command him to get down; however, he would let Curley stand there with his paws on his shoulder, and listen as Curley spoke to him in little whining yelps.  When Curley would be at the sliding glass doors, you could wave at him and he would talk to you with the same whining yelps; needless to say, the entire family loved this 10-year old dog that we had rescued from an animal shelter in Texas.

"No," she replied, "he is just laying there, not breathing." 

"I'll be right home," I told her and hung up. 

I headed home, my mind thought of just the previous evening . . . I pet him for about 15 minutes, as well as did my friend Trent, after we finished playing a pool game; I was glad that we had taken the time to pet him.  Then my thoughts turned to the task at hand . . . I had to bury an 80-pound dog.   

When I got home, my dad was notably upset, as well as mom, and I sat and got the times that they last saw him alive; from that I deduced that he had been dead for a couple hours, apparently from eating something poisonous, as he was bleeding from the mouth, et al.  So, I went to the garage to get the shovel, and found that all of my yard tools were sufficiently behind the many boxes from moving that had not been unpacked yet.  Thinking to myself, it will be dark if I move all of these boxes to get to the shovel, so I will go and get a new shovel . . . I can always use a new shovel. 

Off to Home Depot I went and found a nice new shovel, this way Curley could be buried with a new shovel, thus . . . no complaining.  I drove the 15 minutes back to the house strategizing on where I would put his grave-site.  I got back to the house and found what I thought was a good location and begun shoveling. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get further than 3-inches into the ground, as the tip of my blade was hitting something that appeared to be limestone.  I thought if I only had my pick-ax, I could make pebbles out of the sandstone and continue with the dig . . . 

Here started the events that made me commit this story to written form . . . 

"Crap!," I exclaimed, as I new that the pick-ax and shovel was back there sitting alongside one another, figuratively laughing at me, as I could see them, but could not re-arrange stuff to where I could reach them.  "Well, I guess I'll go get a brand new pick-ax too, as I can always use two," I said to myself, justifying another trip to Home Depot.  Thus, in 30-minutes, I was swinging my brand new pick-ax and knocking chunks of limestone off of the top of what appeared to be a friggin' solid layer of nothing softer than granite; I kept up this futile swinging of the pick-ax, until I saw sparks begin to fly off of the tip . . . well that is when I figured, I needed to find another spot. 

Another spot I found, and by re-reading the previous paragraph, it will explain how fruitful the next attempt at a hole was.  I repeated this same futile attempt at dog burial for 4 more sites, until I looked at my dad . . . at this time I was sweatin' and breathin', like a dog crappin' a peach seed . . . "Sweet friggin' Lincoln's Beard, I am done," I exclaimed between gasps for breath, surveying the five 3" deep holes that I had finally had to show for the last 2-hours of work and tool purchasing.  

"I am defeated, dad," I said; "We've got to do something different. . . <gasping for breath> . . . I think we are going to have to call one of those pet cremators, and have them cremate the dog, as we only have a little bit of soil with which to bury him."  Surveying the time, it was 4 PM on a Friday, thus time was not on our side. 

I raced into the house to hop on the internet and typed in "cremation animal wildwood mo" into Google and found several places.  So I called one and entered a realm that I was not ready to enter. With a calm voice, that one would assume from a butler, or funeral home director, {the name is changed}, "Happy Heaven Pet Crematorium, how may I help you today?" 

"Well, my dog just died, and I live on a hill that is apparently made of something harder than carbide steel, and I can't bury him, and he is about an 80-pound dog, and I figured that cremating him is something that I now consider a necessity," I rambled. 

"I am sorry about your loss, please tell me about your pet . . . How long did you have him," he calmly asked. 

I replied, "Well why don't we talk about necessary things . . . like, how long are you open until ? . . what is the cost ? . . How do I have to prepare the dog to get him to you ? . . and stuff such as that." 

"Well, we have found here at Happy Heaven Pet Crematorium that if the owners talk about their pet, it helps them deal with the loss much easier . . . it makes our task seem much more caring and personal," he calmly stated, like a psychiatrist asking why you hate your mother. 

"Look," I said, attempting to head the long-winded conversation off at the pass, "I have already dealt with his death . . . I am cool with it . . . I hate that it happened, but I need a friggin' doggie barbeque with some ashes back, so I can successfully bury the ashes out here on the hill . . . hell, it is 4 PM on a Friday afternoon, and I don't want to have a dog corpse just a layin' around here awaiting for y'all to open on Monday . . . I feel that I need to be throwing him in the Jeep right now and bringing him to you . . . so please, I beg you, save the pomp-and-circumstance for some other person whom is distraught about Fluffy taking the final plunge." 

"OK," he replied, "for $225, you get your pet cremated and the ashes returned to you in a commemorative urn, which can hold a picture of your beloved pet.  Our driver has gone for the day, so we cannot come today and pick up your pet, but I will await here if you would care to bring him in." 

"How much if you just put him in a box, as we will be burying the ashes anyway, and I would hate to waste a perfectly good urn," I asked, "and are their any tips you have for me on how to package him for transport, as I will be in a jeep because I don't have a truck, and I have never hauled a dead dog around before."  

"The price will remain the same either way," he replied, "and as far as packaging up a pet to travel within the confines of a vehicle, I would wrap the pet in a sheet, and place him in a box . . . this should keep the smell to a minimum." 

I told him that I would be there within the hour, and finally hung up the phone.  I packaged Curley up and headed for the Crematorium. 

The temperature was a chilly 38-degrees, as I headed down 44 on the way to downtown St. Louis.  I had the heater on in the Jeep, and was coming across 270 when I caught a whiff of something that reminded me that smell might be a part of this trek. Down came the windows of the Jeep, as I barreled down 44 with the wind chill of the 60-mile per hour wind reaching into the 20's. 

People driving by, stared at the friggin' moron driving in the cold with all of the windows down, the only thing that would have been better would have been for me to have the entire top off of the Jeep.  Finally, shiverin' like a Olympic swimmer in Speedos™, standin' in the Arctic, I pulled into the crematorium parking lot and met Harold, the crematorium guy. He brought a little trolley out, and we loaded the box onto it. 

To my surprise, we rolled into the blast furnace room, and there was a guy shoveling out the furnace; alongside were about 4 normal-sized different finished coffins.  "We will do Curley on Monday," Harold said, "We had a run on people which we are having to finish up this evening."  

With that being said, I finally realized that what I had just walked thru was a guy shoveling Uncle Mortimer out of the furnace; it however didn't prepare me for the next minute of getting Curley into the freezer for animals, as we walked down the hall of walk-in freezers. 

"So, you do people too, eh," I asked, noting that several of the doors were labeled "Human." 

"Yep," Harold replied, "we are a full service crematorium . . . You know, for having lost a pet today, you are doing amazingly well." 

"Well, I generally don't let that last strand of attachment happen to a pet, as I know they will be missed when they are gone, but I won't let it devastate me," I replied. 

"How do you want to pay for this," asked Harold. 

My reply . . . "Just put it on the card."