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.)

Oooh, what are they for? Is it pie?

Nothing so delicious, I'm afraid. They're for lots of tiny lightboxes of a sort.