It's just after midnight and the whole house is sleeping. But I am sitting in my family room, wide awake with my mind whirling. I have lots of things to worry about these days. Like why is Indiana still allowed to be a state after this week? And what if people actually vote for Scott Walker in a Presidental election? (I mean really, political associations aside, if he can't handle a simple 4 years of college how the hell does he think he can handle 4 years of a presidency?) But the biggest issue weighing on my mind is that of the Worst Funeral Home in the history of funeral homes.
When the hospital asked to choose a funeral home we were still in shock. Staring at each other over the silent body of our beautiful daughter, we had to start making decisions that no parent should ever have to make. Brent gave them the name of the first funeral home that came to mind, and I won't mention any names, but it was a terrible experience from beginning to end.
**cough* Laird Funeral Home in Elgin IL **cough**
At least I am assuming it will be horrible until we are done dealing with them. 5 months later we are still dealing with them and I still want to punch them all in their slimy, mouth breathing throats.
My mom was the one who actually made the first call to them for us. She set up our appointment with them the day after I was released from the hospital. She explained to them that we were still very much in shock and needed someone sensitive to handle Hannah's arrangements. They promptly assigned us to Douche. No, no that's not right. Let's call him Super Douche. Because he was Super Douchey.
We walked in and he greeting us with a giant smile and an enthusiastic "Nice to meet ya!" I started to wonder if he knew who we were. Should I explain to him that we were there to plan our daughter's funeral and not shovel snow? Was he confused?
Oh no, he wasn't. Asking us to follow him to his office, he started throwing out prices like "A coffin for a baby will run ya about $350 bucks." Say what? Did that really just come out of Super Douche's mouth? Sure did, and it was about to get worse.
We filled out the death certificate information while he mouth breathed and snorted (what the hell?) and kept running into his boss' office to ask questions. By this point everything this guy did was annoying the ever-loving shit out of me and his douchiness was only getting started.
We started to discuss service dates. He announced to us that Hannah's service would be that Friday from 9-11am. We said no thanks. We explained that we have family coming in from out of town and we need a weekend and we would actually prefer the next weekend since I was recovering from surgery. He said he'd see if that would work. I just kept thinking "WTF? Make it work!" Finally, after yet another trip to the boss' office (also a douche) he said the Saturday of that week would work from 2-4. So we repeated AGAIN that we needed to wait another week since I was still recovering.
He waved his douchy little hand in air and laughed. "Ah, we have chairs you can sit in!"
Let's just pause for a moment to be thankful that I was unable to move at this point. Otherwise I would be in jail right now. Let's just leave it at that.
After I got done bursting into tears he agreed on the date we wanted and the drama continued to unfold. He argued with us about the dates in the program. He wanted to list Hannah's birth and death dates while I explained to him more than once that they were the same date. What the fuckety fuck? We just filled out the death certificate paperwork. How does he not understand this? Then we had to haggle over urns. He gave us 3 options by pointing over our shoulders to a shelf in the back of the room with 3 of the ugliest urns I've ever seen. So I had to ask for more options. He said they didn't have any. I didn't believe him. Another trip to his boss' office and what do you know? An entire catalogue full of urn options magically appeared. Funny how that worked out. At this point I was in tears because THIS ASSHOLE IS HANDLING MY DAUGHTER'S FINAL ARRANGEMENTS OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE!
Before I could scream, I asked him to show us the chapel where her service would be (he showed us the wrong one) and then we had to wait while he got his business card (did not even have his name on it) from his boss' office (what the hell?) and then had a conversation with his boss about some convention while we stood there awkwardly waiting for his stupid card and being ignored by both of them. Finally Super Douche gives us his card and closes the meeting with a hearty "Have a great afternoon!"
I thought about kicking him but I was afraid of busting a stitch.
The service itself went smoothly, but Super Douche had the night off and the nice man taking his place left me alone. Thank God. But we still aren't done dealing with them. We still haven't received Hannah's death certificate. So Tues morning, I sucked it up and called them. The gentleman (and I use the term loosely) that answered told me he couldn't look for it because they didn't open for another 15 minutes. I sat there in silence. He finally agree to give a look around their office and call me back. Guess what never happened.
That's right. So I called back again yesterday, was transferred a few times before Super Douche came on the line. He said the county never sent it (I'm guessing they never requested it) and he could get it by the next day. That day has passed and nothing. So Monday morning I will be making yet another phone call to Super Douche to try and straighten this all out.
And now that I worked out my anger here, I might be able to finally write a letter to them detailing why they are the worst. But I doubt they'll read it. They'll probably just throw it down on the desk next to countless other "missing" death certificates that they promise to search for just as soon as they open for the day.
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