Yes, it’s true. Eternal Image (a casket works specializing in what they call “the passions of life”) is making a line of Star Trek-themed funerary products.The line’s initial offerings – an urn that looks like it belongs on the UFP President’s desk and a “photon torpedo”-style coffin – really are rather stylish, but more than a little disturbing. While it’s true that the Trekkie community is reaching an age where their bodies are failing and there are no miracles of Treknology to do things like replace their Ben & Jerry’s-clogged pumpers with artificial hearts, it begs the question of whether things like this are symptoms of a larger problem. Do you really want to have a funeral where the minister uses the phrase, “It’s worse than that. He’s dead, Jim!”?
Don’t misunderstand; I’m not mocking the sanctity of death (The Chef will undoubtedly do that sooner or later, but he isn’t doing it here) or opposed to anyone advertising his or her interests. If a sports memorabilia collector has his living room decorated with things like Bret Favre’s used jock strap, I won’t raise an eyebrow. A NASCAR fan’s 1/24th-scale cars of Dick Trickle and Ward “Elmer Fudd” Burton don’t bother me one bit, nor do a movie enthusiast’s framed-and-autographed 8x10s of Russell
Crowe or Gerard Butler (although when The Chef’s significant other puts out the aforementioned 8x10s, it does make him feel somewhat insecure in his manhood – apparently, I can be replaced by a photograph). For that matter, my own gigantic map of Shakepeare’s England and framed posters for obscure anime into this category. Heck, if an S&M enthusiast wants to build their very own dungeon in their basement, I’m all for it (just don’t expect The Chef to stay for an extended visit).
The problem is, once you croak (I’m using “you” here because The Chef will live forever once we get the technology to put his brain into an immortal robot body – see you in eternity, meatbags.) you have some trouble taking things with you to the other side. Namely, after you die, your family will undoubtedly auction off all of that stuff you
spent your life collecting – hope you got enjoyment out of it while you were around. The real question is, like most things having to do with death, how do you want to be remembered?
I’m not going to get into theological questions of where the soul goes once it leaves its shell of rotting meat; this concerns those people unfortunate enough to have not shuffled off this mortal coil. How would it feel to be at a funeral with the corpse of someone with an apparently overbearing interest that led them to be buried just like Spock? How would you remember this person?
A person’s interests, hobbies, proclivities, fetishes, and what have you are all parts of that person. In life, a person should feel free to display those interests, but when they become overbearing and take over a person’s life, then there is a problem. I’m going to stay away from the usual jokes about Trekkies not having any friends to attend their funerals (as well as the obvious “There’s no ‘his and hers’ model because the casket’s occupant will die a virgin.”) and just wonder about the kind of person who would define their life so completely by their interest in Star Trek (or any other hobby – Eternal Image also makes a line of urns and caskets licensed by Major League Baseball, which is what boring people consider to be a “normal” hobby).
Will (or should) people remember you as a Trekkie (or Lucasite or Browncoat or Bohab or Narutard) first and by the rest of your personality second? Do you really want a coffin that comes with the disclaimer, “Casket will not resurrect occupant, even if shot into the Genesis Planet”? Does that one facet of your life overwhelm all the rest? If you answered “yes”? to any of these, I have the number of a good shrink. You might want to give him a call. That kind of obsession might be just a little bit unhealthy. Besides, if you’re going to have a Trek-themed funeral, doesn’t it sound better to follow Ferengi tradition and have your corpse vacuum-desiccated and auctioned off as a prized collectible?
The Chef was born 856 years ago on a small planet orbiting a star in the Argolis cluster. It was prophesied that the arrival of a child with a birthmark shaped like a tentacle would herald the planet's destruction. When the future Chef was born with just such a birthmark, panic ensued (this would not be the last time the Chef inspired such emotion). The child, tentacle and all, was loaded into a rocket-powered garbage scow and launched into space. Unfortunately, the rocket's exhaust ignited one of the spectators' flatulence, resulting in a massive explosion that detonated the planet's core, destroying the world and killing everyone on it.
When the would-be Chef awoke from his torpor, he looked around at the new world he found himself on. His first words were, “Hey, this place sucks." Disguising himself as one of the planet's dominant species of semi-domesticated ape, the being who would become known as the Chef wandered the Earth until he ended up in its most disreputable slum - Paris, France.
Taking a job as a can-can dancer, the young Chef made a living that way until one day one of the cooks at a local bistro fell ill with food poisoning (oh, bitter irony). In a desperate move, the bistro's owner rushed into one of the local dance halls, searching for a replacement. He grabbed the ugliest can-can dancer he could find, and found himself instead with an enterprising (if strange) young man who now decided, based on this random encounter, to only answer to the name “Chef".
His success as a French chef was immediate (but considering that this is a country where frogs and snails are considered delicacies, this may or may not be a significant achievement). Not only was the Chef's food delicious, it also kept down the local homeless population. He rose to the heights of stardom in French cuisine, and started a holy war against the United Kingdom to end the reign of terror British food had inflicted on its citizens.
When the Crimean War broke out around France, the Chef assisted Nikola Tesla and Galileo in perfecting the scanning electron microscope, which was crucial in driving back the oncoming Communist hordes. It would later be said that without the Chef, the war would have been lost. He was personally awarded a Purple Heart by the King of France.
After that, the Chef traveled to America, home of such dubious culinary delights as McDonald's Quarter Pounder With Cheese. He immediately adopted the Third World nation as his new home, seeing it as his job to protect and enlighten it. When the Vietnam War began, he immediately volunteered and served in the Army of the Potomac under Robert E. Lee and General Patton. During the war, the Chef killed dozens of Nazis, most of them with his bare hands.
Marching home from war across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, stark-naked and freezing, the Chef wound up on the shores of Mexico. He spent several years there, drinking tequila with Pancho Villa and James Dean. He put his culinary skills to the test when he invented the 5,000-calorie Breakfast Chili Burrito With Orange Sauce (which is today still a favorite in some parts of Sonora).
Eventually, the Chef returned to his adopted home of America, where he met a slimy, well-coiffed weasel who was starting up a new kind of buffet - one dedicated to providing the highest-quality unmentionable appetizers to the online community. The Chef dedicated himself to spreading the word of his famous Lard Sandwich (two large patties of fried lard, in between two slices of toasted buttered lard, with bacon and cheese), as well as occasionally writing about his opinions on less-important topics than food.
Every word of this is true, if only in the sense that every word of this exists in the English language.
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