When I was a broke college student living out on my own, my roommate and I would crash funerals and then attend repasts so we could eat. It may sound crass, but it was a means to an end back then, and we didn’t feel like we were really hurting anyone — just trying to survive. It was the same concept as crashing a wedding, but far less tasteful and bolder, if you ask me.
Our process was simple. We would scan through obituaries in the local newspapers and choose ethnic names, or if there was a picture listed, we would select African-American individuals who had passed away. We both had one good suit that our parents had bought us for interviews. It was our funeral crashing suit that we would don and then head to the chosen funeral.
Upon arrival, we would scan the parking lot to see how large the funeral was. If we figured it would be easy to get lost among the crowd at the repast, we would press on, hoping to have hit the jackpot. The repast was a riskier move because it’s usually held at a family member’s home. We would try to arrive with the first wave of folks and quickly fix our plates, loading them up with delicacies from the smorgasbord of food that is generally present. It was heavenly, no pun intended.
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One time, we got cornered by a nosy auntie who had a feeling that something just wasn’t quite right. We were at a man named Ronald’s funeral, and she kept trying to get us to tell her how we knew Ronald, but we were skilled at dodging these types of attempts at shutting down our crash efforts. We dipped out of there pretty quickly, and no one was the wiser.
Read the full story at Atlanta Black Star.
Now that I am a grown man, I have regrets about the level of disrespect my roommate and I displayed as we capitalized off of the pain and suffering of complete and total strangers. Has anyone out there ever done something quite as deplorable and looked back at it and said, ‘I could’ve done better’?
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