K.I.S.S. me goodbye

When I die, I have but one request: Keep it simple.

I've never thought death was a big deal. It is, i realize, the only REAL existential crisis; but that doesn't mean it should be complicated or difficult. Like EVERY OTHER PERSON who ever lived, I'll be here one minute, gone the next. My affairs will be in order. I will have lived a full rich life, even if it happens tomorrow.

So I'm asking you, please, to keep the funeral arrangements simple.

A shovel is all you'll need. No maudlin fanfare. No mourners. No bogus recaps of "a life well lived" or well wishers pretending I had some great effect. Just a hole and a pile of person. Toss me in it and go.

Except of course, I've always loved the sea. Sadly, as with so many other aspects of my life, she didn't love me back. She always made me throw up all over her. Come to think of it, that might have more to do with her hatred of boats. At any rate, it was a complex relationship, and that's the only real reason I can think of that I was overcome with paralyzing fear every time I got near her. So perhaps, if only for poetic reasons, I'd like to be buried at sea. Simply, without pomp, of course, and without circumstance, but definitely at sea.

I don't know what that entails, permit wise. It might be complicated, which would go against the general tenor of my wishes. Perhaps you could just do a Weekend at Bernie's thing: sneak my lifeless corpse out on a whale watching boat and dump me unceremoniously overboard. I hope there are no legal ramifications for you.
Come to think of it, go ahead and get the permit. That sounds less complicated than an extended legal wrangle.

Hmm.

As long as you're having to go through the rigmarole of the permit, we might as well go ahead and get a casket. On land, a pine box would be more than enough. Too much even. But I'm afraid that might float. I think this one might have to be steel, or iron. That sucker will sink like a rock. I hope that isn't expensive. And you know what would be cool? A window. A round one, like on a ship, right over my face. That would be cool for some scientist someday in a submarine to discover this tank of a casket, with this withered corpse staring out of the window. Plus, on the off chance that I'm not actually dead, but paralyzed like that guy on the Twilight Zone, I'd at least get to watch some interesting stuff on the way down. And you know what? As long as I'm going to the bottom of the ocean, it might has well be the deepest part of the ocean. The Marianas Trench. That's it. Find that--somewhere off the coast of Monterey--and drop me out there, in my iron casket with a submarine grade window.

Speaking of submarines, it might be cool to have one follow me down, just in case I do wake up. Plus they could film it, and it could be part of an awesome reality show about people's final wishes. Call it "Death Wish," or "Finality Follies." The profits from that will certainly off-set any expenses you might incur carrying out my simple wishes for my very simple funeral.