You Can't Make This Shit Up #5--The Legman

It's almost laughable how many jobs I've worked over the past few years. In fact, half the time it is downright hilarious, the other half............well, that makes for less cheeky blog commentary. I really am not a transient, a hobo or a gypsy. I'm just a highly educated broad trying to eat AND have health insurance........and yeah, I'm crazy enough to dream big and want both of those things at the same time. So, yes, I've made yet another fascinating career change. I now work at a cemetery. What do you do, you may ask? Well, sales of course.

Which is how I met this interesting fellow. Now at first blush, this should be a sad story. A seventy-something man and his wife make an appointment to pre-arrange his funeral because he is dying. We spent hours in our mausoleum discussing the merits of ground burial vs. above ground entombment. Mr. Wentworth needed an oxygen tank to breathe and his wife appeared to be on the edge of tears off and on. There was lengthy discussion about the older unwed sister of his wife and their daughter, whom they may also purchase cemetery property for. It is a belabored and emotional Monday morning that ultimately left the couple exhausted and needing time to talk. We decided to break for lunch, I would call to schedule their next appointment later.

After a couple of days I called to set the next appointment. Mr. Wentworth answered the phone in a belabored and breathy voice, which could have simply been related to the oxygen tank, but in time I grew to re-interpret. (What follows here is and abridged and slightly watered down version of the conversation, the things he actually said would make a sailor blush and I don't care to repeat verbatim.)

Mr. Wentworth: I just have to tell you, you have the most amazing legs I've ever seen.
Purlygrl: Uh......
Mr. Wentworth: It's all I've been able to think about since we left the other day.
Purlygrl: ............Silence
Mr. Wentworth: I've always been a leg man, and I've got to tell you, you just have the sexiest legs I've ever seen. If I were a few years younger you'd be in trouble.
Purlygrl: .....more painful silence.......... (Also important to note that this last comment is VERY wishful thinking on his part.)
Mr. Wentworth: [at this point he continues to digress, we'll move forward]

It's important to note that at this point roughly 28% of me was willing to consider the possibility that Mr. Wentworth was on some sort of heavy opiate painkiller and wasn't fully cognisant of what he was saying. That is until...........

Purlygrl: (awkwardly) Ah, so, the reason I called was to set up that follow up appointment. Would next Monday at the same time be good for you and MRS. WENTWORTH?
Mr. Wentworth: I don't know, my wife isn't home right now. You don't think I'd be talking to you like this if she were home do you?

.....And the morphine explanation goes out the window with Mrs. Wentworth's dignity...........

On a subsequent conversation he detailed his hopes that he might die in his sleep dreaming of me and of course my lovely legs. In the end the Wentworth's bought three mausoleum spaces, and a second right of internment, which resulted in a pretty healthy commission for me.

I'm not so naive or puritanical that I am really all that shocked or horrified by men behaving this way. I really get it, men are pigs. When I was a waitress, a bartender, even a clerk I encountered guys like this, but this one takes the cake. In my wildest dreams it never occurred to me that a dying man would behave this way while buying, of all things, his own crypt. Honestly, you just can't make this shit up.