>I guess one of the benefits of being the only child of poor parents is there won't be a lot of estate wrangling when my folks pass away.

I guess, but as the only child of a poor mom, it also means I am going to have to deal with everything myself! I am also the only person in my generation who talks to my uncles, so I think I am alone in that too!

I just bought 200 aluminum pie plates as part of my job. If I were doing props that wouldn't be weird.

Oooh, what are they for? Is it pie?

I guess, but as the only child of a poor mom, it also means I am going to have to deal with everything myself!

I said just last night, watching Tim's aunt greet people at the visitation, that because Dad didn't remarry,** when he dies my brother and I will have to do the whole greet-all-the-well-meaning-people, which neither of us is remotely emotionally equipped to handle, because we both have social anxiety BAD (him actually worse than me) and also need 50-foot personal bubbles so people won't fucking hug us.

Tim said "You both should just start weeping and howling, and people will leave you alone."

I said, "No -- weeping attracts The Huggers en masse."

He said, "Yeah, but then you and your brother can flail and punch throats."

I paused, and then said, "Oh my god, my Dad would LOVE that at his visitation!!!"

We are bad people.

**(I know that even if Dad remarried, there's no guarantee that a spouse would outlive him, so if the hypothetical spouse died first, my bro and I would still have to handle all the emotional labor of the funeral, which, again, we are 100% UN-equipped to deal with. I cannot stress enough how goddamn feral we are.)

Funerals really are a buttload of emotional work, along with just the planning and wrangling.

I always have to amend my rant with this: I know that people want to pay their respects and they're doing it out of kindness. I'm not *so* feral that I think they're doing something horrible by following the more-or-less generally accepted social conventions for funerals. I totally get that they're being nice when they want to hug and talk at length, etc., etc.

I just can't handle that shit very well. And I'm finding that, now that he's sober and doesn't have controlled substances as a crutch, my brother handles it even worse than I do. I'm not used to being the (comparatively) functional one.

I know that people want to pay their respects and they're doing it out of kindness.

Oh, for sure. But it still means (at least for me) a lot of having to be "on". You can't say to your grandmother's friend "Yes, it really sucks and I don't want to deal with it right now, but I have to at least make an effort because that's what society expects, and I know you're grieving too, but that doesn't necessarily mean I want to hug you and share our grief because I don't really know you."

It's completely acceptable for those in mourning to tag a loved one to run emotional interference for them, or even for said loved one to discreetly take on that task unasked because, well, love.

I imagine that my mother will not want to have a funeral or calling hours or anything like that. My grandmother and grandfather did not either. So I have never actually been the bereaved, only the caller-- but usually only for people so close I can actually support them or extroverted enough that I know they really want people there!

It's completely acceptable for those in mourning to tag a loved one to run emotional interference for them

I did actually tell Tim that my brother and I would make Tim and my brother's wife take care of all the social wrangling for us. (We both married extroverts, which comes in handy from time to time.)