So.
This is a good few years ago now, before we moved up to Canada.
Our one aunt and us have been close for ages. She was the first relation we came out to as queer, and we've been with each other through a LOT of ups and downs. She's also responsible for a lot of our tastes in art, music, and - a big one, if you know us - getting us into TTRPGs in the first place.
This story begins with the death of her father.
Now, we didn't know her part of the family well. They were outside of the gatherings we usually wound up at. However, our aunt was important to us, and we wanted to go with as a show of support.
The funeral isn't that notable, as a whole. There's the standard ceremony, the procession of cars. Her father had been cremated, so the last part was the ashes getting interred in a columbarium.
This is where this story comes in.
So, our situation as this begins:
- We're at a funeral.
- The person who passed wasn't close enough for us to have direct emotional investment.
- We don't have much engagement in what the priest is saying.
- We are very tired and (at this point) unmedicated for slipping focus.
Not wanting to look restless and disengaged, we start looking around the room at the names on the various plaques. Nothing much of note, so our eyes just start skipping along.
And then we do a double-take. Oh no.
There's a niche there for two people, with the last name of WIENERS.
The world stops. Reality has presented us with childish humor bait at the worst possible time. We need to do anything other than continue to look at this.
We try to focus in on the people around us to take in the mood. Weeping, mourning, serious. But we're still not there because it wasn't directly a loss to us, so we start fidgeting again.
Our eyes go back to the Wieners family. There's two niches for urns, both filled. There's names. We need not to look at the names.
We fail to resist the urge. And we look at the first name: Bud.
Bud Wieners is a bit funny, enough to feel a snicker rise that we need to keep choking down. Oh gods. Oh no.
We can't look at the other name.
We can't.
We must. not. look.
But we do, of course.
And we shit you not, the other name there?
Glad.
Glad Wieners.
Glad. Fucking. Wieners.
Oh fuck. We felt ourselves about to lose our shit among so many tears and so much pain. We'd be awful to do that to all of these poor people. What the hell could we do?
Well.
You ever bit your lip hard enough that it BLED to keep yourselves from laughing? We certainly have.
For what it's worth, we did tell our aunt soon after the ceremony wrapped up and she lost her shit about it right then and there too but
holy fuck
and if you want a photo for proof, here you go