#don't want this to be a bummer thread forever it's supposed to be funny damnit

[anonymouscomrade]

Mid-August 2024 "Going To Your Dad's Funeral After His Sudden Death" Edition:

it's too fucking hot to be doing this. come on, old man, you couldn't have hung on until, say, october? of maybe 2050?

a lot of weird yard signs saying "JESUS 2024". you sarcastically wonder to yourself what that's supposed to be code for

there's construction work on the lane going the opposite of yours. google maps will route you this way when you go back home. this will be the second worst thing that happens to you that day

you pass through a small town. one of the first things you see is some fossilized old bat in a Trump shirt sitting on her porch with two Don't Tread On Me flags hanging on it. you suppose it never really dawned on you until now, but you're not sure how you missed it every time you came through here, with all the confederate flags and decals on trucks. you would gladly trade the life of every single inhabitant of this fucking sundown town if it meant dad got even six more months

you arrive at what's now mom's place, you guess. everything still feels surreal, like he's gonna answer the door and it'll turn out you were mistaken about this whole thing somehow

you ask how it happened, and immediately regret it. turns out it was super-sudden, at least. dude probably never even had time to realize something was wrong before he was gone, let alone time to suffer. the tradeoff, of course, is that the neighbor's six-year-old kid is scarred for life because he's the one who found him face-down on the ground

there's so much food. hams, casseroles, fried chicken, four different potato dishes, sandwich meats. if people in the south can be counted on for one thing, it's making sure the grieving family's next twenty meals are taken care of. how could one man possibly have known this many people

you and your brothers spend most of the rest of the night playing Smash Bros. the CPU easily racks up most of the wins. all three of you joke about how rusty you've all gotten at this game, rather than address the obvious distraction

it's 3 AM and you're still awake because it's tomorrow. you see a possum in the yard from the window. that's not nothing, you suppose

the anticipation is worse than the actual event, you're sure. funerals are a fucking dog and pony show designed to extract money from the ones left behind, a bullshit ceremony of performative grief that doesn't help anyone who actually knew the dead guy--

oh my god they're burying him in his overalls and baseball hat. that's genuinely funny, the man had the wardrobe of a cartoon character. he absolutely would have wanted this instead of being put in a suit or something

all of dad's old friends immediately recognize you despite the last time you saw a lot of these people in person being sometime in 1989

you don't show up until there's only thirty minutes of visitation left before the actual funeral gets underway. you tell yourself it's to keep your mom company at her place because that's when she's going, and definitely not because funerals are stressful enough when you aren't related to whoever it's for

oh god he was drafted for the Vietnam war, you completely forgot there's going to be military honors at the burial. you skip out before the burial. everyone in your family has told you that's okay, and you know he'd be fine with it too. you still feel guilty about it. but not guilty enough to turn back

people are out living their lives, going to work, eating food, paying rent. the world keeps turning. just... without your dad now.

...seriously though what the fuck was up with those JESUS 2024 signs

driving through the american south to meet the folks for the holidays is always weird because you're constantly passing by the same things:

Dollar General store out in the middle of nowhere that has to be on the very edge of a small town you've never seen because there's no way they do enough business to stay open otherwise

barn that you're 99% sure predates the civil war and nobody alive has seen the inside of

pile of gravel, lumber, or tires that's been there since before you were born

distressing number of roadkill deer carcasses, most look like the deer just fell over dead on the side of the road but there's always at least one that looks like it exploded on contact

a small town that either has five churches all named First Baptist Church or one giant church that cost more to build than all the rest of the buildings in town combined

huge factory that looks like it was built in the 50s and then immediately abandoned, except everyone in a twenty mile radius knows someone who used to work there

gas station that closed in the 90s, with 90s gas prices still on the sign

the most hideous McMansion you've ever laid eyes on, built by someone who thought having a giant house with zero function and that looks pretty cool if you're a used car dealer in a flyover state but not to anyone else is totally worth living at least a half-hour away from any store or emergency services