Tuesday, May 5, 2009

"I thought it was legal, officer."

Okay, I have another question for my readers and colleagues. So we don't end up using the title, there.

What is the CHEAPEST, EASIEST LEGAL way to get rid of a body in Washington State?

Breathe....

We're just putting together plans for life, like ALL of us should. My preference would be to chained down on the reef on the beach and let the hermit crabs have a party -- and then allow the remaining bony bits to be used for Hallowe'en decorations (give kids a legend -- and possible psychosis -- for life). But the Sheriff's Department probably wouldn't appreciate that (spoilsports).

Cheapest cremation? Hospital school donation? Commercial body donation? (Yes, those companies are growing -- but don't go with the people who answer you from Baltimore with Russian accents in their email, especially when they say, "We legimatate buziness! You check on internets! We not gots time -- we gots bodees to processing!").

Everybody our age should be thinking about this. These meat wagons don't last forever.

3 comments:

Miss Jane A. Barcroft said...

The only body I ever disposed of outside conventional channels was slam-dunked off an overpass into the flatbed of a pickup truck full of horse manure in my second pulp mystery, which isn't really disposing, just passing the problem along. But I hear the market in inexpensive cremation is becoming more competitive. I did have to arrange for one of those once and the end price was a third of the first usurious quote.

Caleb Collins said...

Most states are actually very permissive on this issue; no one want to pollute an aquifer, but then america doesn't really truck with pollution standards.
You can pretty much bury a dead body wherever you want to, as long as the death industrial complex hasn't gained control in your state.

E. J. Barnes said...

Lisa Carlson has written a book that has gone through multiple editions -- now called Caring for the Dead -- which includes a state-by-state breakdown of funerary laws.

http://www.upperaccess.com/experts/carlson.html

She wrote the first edition when she had to deal with a burial on the deceased's family property -- something that is still allowed in many less-urban places.

For my part, I'm going to be a medical school cadaver. I know it means formaldehyde, but heck, it's necessary if we want doctors. And it beats having them take apart a non-volunteer, like that frog in your high school class.