When I Die I Want To Be a Pencil
I believe that when I die I will go to heaven. Whatever happens to my body doesn’t really concern me. I figure they will bury me somewhere and I hope that some people will miss me when I am gone. The thought of cremation has never appealed to me. I can’t get excited about my ashes sitting on a shelf as a constant reminder to someone that I am dead. Scattering my ashes seems kind of gross when I actually stop and think about it. Then today I read a story that offered an alternative to getting buried that actually didn’t sound that bad to me. Apparently you can have your remains turned into a lifetime supply of pencils! The pencils come with a pencil sharpener that collects the shavings and becomes an urn as it fills up.
As awesome as this sounds, the fact that they can make a lifetime supply of pencils from one body seems a little weird. Just using the word “lifetime” in the context of writing with dead body sticks sounds like a cruel joke. Couldn’t they just say 573 pencils? Come to think about it, I think it would be nice if they were individually numbered. When someone is writing with me I want them to think “This is number 567 of 573. I better make this one last!” Yeah, that would make me happy.
I think the reason I thought this was so cool was because I have always loved pencils. In grade school I was always getting in trouble for taking apart my mechanical pencils. I carried them around in special boxes and stood in awe in the pencil section of the office supply stores. I had strong opinions about the perfect hardness (3b if you were wondering) and spent my allowance on expensive new drawing tools. It makes me wonder if I could be turned into 5mm lead refills instead of a traditional pencil? Hopefully they wouldn’t have to resort to 7mm because that is just so fat and clunky. I would rather be turned into a Bic than 7mm lead. I guess I never grew out of my obsession with pencils. I still have a weird reaction to 5mm lead containers. I get nervous when there is only a couple pieces left. What if I run out!?! Heaven forbid I have to use a pen!
The pencil sharpener urn is another question mark. I am trying to think of all the pencil shavings that I have made in my relatively short life and I bet there is quite a lot. If there really is a lifetime supply of pencils then I imagine the shavings would fill a small room. Something doesn’t add up. This is another reason that I am hoping for the 5mm lead refill option. It just solves the whole “what do I do with the daddy shavings” problem. Did I take that too far? Sorry.
The most interesting angle of the whole pencil concept is what would I be used for? It might be cool to be turned into a hand-written Bible. It would also be cool to be used for drawing. I like the idea of being pressed into a nice piece of stonehenge paper. I can almost feel the eraser rubbing against me and the artist’s fingers smearing me into something beautiful. That would be paradise.
In the end (pun) a box of precious person pencils probably isn’t the best idea for me. I am not going to abandon the idea completely, however. I am going to take the cheap way out and just have free mechanical pencils at the funeral with my name on it. I always feel great when I get a free pencil, and I want people to feel good at my funeral. I want people to say, “Wasn’t that a nice funeral? Did you get one of those free pencils? Yeah, Adrian sure was a great guy wasn’t he?”
