GabCast Bellgab.com - 30 October, 2016

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Oct. 30, 2016 - GabCast Bellgab.com

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30 October, 2016

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	Hey, if you are at all interested in vapes, e-cigs, that sort of thing, maybe you're already into that.
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	This is the Gabcast, a podcast about BellGab.com.
	Call us now.
	573-837-4948.
	That number again, 573-837-4948.
	And now, here's the Gabcast.
	Yeah, it's the Gabcast.
	It's a special Halloween edition of the Gabcast.
	I'm here with my longtime friend Matthew.
	Hey, buddy.
	How you doing?
	It's certainly a pleasure for you to finally do this because you and I have been friends for a really long time.
	Yes, we have.
	We have been.
	And he's a real friend, ladies and gentlemen.
	He's not an internet friend.
	He's sitting three feet away from me.
	I know there are a lot of people out there who thought I had no actual real-life friends, but he's actually in the same room.
	There's no internet delay between the two of us speaking.
	That's never happened before in the history of my podcast.
	That's an accurate statement.
	Anyway, Matthew is a friend of mine, a longtime friend.
	He's 35.
	You were born in a funeral home.
	Not in a funeral home, but from the moment of birth, you've lived in a funeral home.
	Yes.
	I mean, you've been surrounded by death your entire life.
	Yes.
	This is an experience a lot of people can't relate to.
	And it's kind of funny how, you know, you were talking to me the other day about how sometimes people will come to you.
	Maybe a loved one has died.
	Maybe a friend has died.
	And they'll talk to you about how they're going through the grieving process and stuff like that.
	But my thoughts when you were telling me this were it must be something you're so desensitized to now, just death.
	I mean, you've been around it forever.
	It's a part of your reality.
	And so I don't really think there's anything anybody could tell you that you wouldn't be shocked, that you would be shocked by.
	I mean, you've seen grief at the most despairing levels.
	I mean, just what is it somebody could say to you about death that would move you?
	You know, I am still sympathetic to people.
	I'm still sympathetic to people about, you know, losing someone, but also I look at death quite a bit different than the average person would since I've been around it so long.
	And, you know, I'm used to it, more or less.
	It's just a, it's, for regular people, it's an abnormality, death is.
	It's something to have a big conversation about.
	It's something that puts the skids on whatever's happening in your life at that time.
	But to you, death is just no different than somebody who, say, flips burgers, thinking they wouldn't put a lot of thought into each of those burgers they're flipping.
	Right, right.
	I mean, I mean, I do.
	I'm not saying you're now a soulless pack of dirt, but I mean, you really, I don't think, could be moved by death, you know?
	I mean, even though I consider you on my short list of real friends in life, which for anybody listening who's over the age of 30, if you think you have a long list of friends, then you probably don't really have any friends.
	I have a very short list of people that I really would call friends, and Matthew is on that list.
	And if I were to experience a death in my family, I'm sure I would apprise you of it.
	Of course, I would mention it to you.
	I would talk to you about it, but I wouldn't rub your face in it.
	Right, right.
	Like, I almost have no idea what you're going through, or I have no idea what you're talking about.
	Anybody who would do that with you seems like they probably are a little disconnected from you and don't really understand you.
	Right.
	And, you know, I understand people that just want to talk to me about it because maybe I have a different outlook about it.
	But also, thinking that I don't understand, you know, their grief at that point, you know, I totally get it.
	You know, I've seen it so often.
	So you were born into a family that already was running a mortuary service.
	Yes.
	And what's your earliest recollection of death, seeing a dead body?
	Did your family try to shield you from that early in life?
	No, it was one of those things where I...
	You couldn't be shielded from it.
	You're living in the facility.
	I was more or less told at a very young age that I have to get used to this.
	Like verbatim, that's what you were told, or was it just an understood thing?
	No, I was told that, that, you know, this is happening.
	This is going to be around.
	You need to get used to this because it's not.
	Was there something that happened that prompted that conversation?
	Did you freak out?
	Yeah, you know, just like any other little kid, I was scared of, you know, the dark or whatever, and knowing that...
	Really?
	Really.
	Yeah, and like knowing that.
	Knowing what happens where you live.
	Right, and knowing that that's it.
	That actually affected you.
	You weren't that used to it.
	Right.
	And knowing that there were dead bodies actually in the house, and I almost didn't understand it.
	You know what I mean?
	Like, I didn't have a good understanding of death whenever I was real little, of course.
	Well, that's odd that you had those conscious thoughts.
	I would have expected you grew up without giving this much of a thought because it's sort of like a kid who grows up in a home surrounded by abuse.
	Maybe he's got parents that beat each other.
	Whatever.
	To that kid, that is normality.
	That is reality.
	That is the way of things.
	And so I would think that growing up around death, you would never have had this we need to talk, son, sort of moment.
	Right.
	I mean, it wasn't like a sit-down, look, we have to go over some things here.
	It was just...
	What happened that prompted it?
	I think I kind of cut you off.
	Well, I don't really think anything prompted it.
	It was just knowing and not understanding whenever I was a kid about death, you know what I mean?
	that there are deceased people and they have family members and you know people coming in to make arrangements on their loved one I wasn't I didn't quite understand it whenever I was like five You know what I mean?
	So it wasn't like anything that prompted like a big incident or anything.
	It was just I was kind of told, look, this is the business.
	This is.
	Okay, let's get down to this.
	You walked into a room and saw somebody furiously raping a corpse.
	That was the moment someone came to you and said, listen, Matthew, this is the reality of your existence.
	You're going to have to accept it.
	Just as there are birds and beasts, so too are corpses being raped in your home.
	Learn to appreciate this and accept this.
	So you work for a mortuary company now in Ohio.
	And you are closely attached to, plugged into, associated with, and a participant in every aspect of the mortuary business.
	Right.
	Effectively.
	I mean, what happens?
	Pretty much.
	Yeah, the process of preparing a dead body and dealing with the not just the legalities, the paperwork and everything that comes along with that, but the physicality of it all process.
	I'm not so much associated with, like, you know, making the arrangements or anything like that.
	I'm more of a, you know, I go pick them up.
	You do some of the dirty work.
	Yeah, I do the dirty work.
	And by dirty work, you work scenes.
	Yes.
	So you are coming into a situation at its most unkempt, at its most unanticipated, most stressful.
	Yes.
	We may be talking about people who died suddenly, people who committed suicide, left a nasty scene behind as a result.
	You're coming into those situations at the most unkempt end of the death process.
	And, I mean, you've been doing that for a long time.
	What was there?
	That seems like something that would just be really tough to acclimate to.
	I mean, when I'm at funerals, I get really skittish.
	Not skittish, but I've just, I feel a certain unease.
	Actually, knowing you has subsided some of this within me.
	I don't think I quite feel the same way now as I perhaps once would have.
	But, you know, there is a certain unease when you're standing at a coffin with a dead body in it.
	And so to do a job like what you do, there would have to be an acclimation process.
	There's no way you just went into that job.
	Even though you were born into the funeral business, there's no way you just went into doing field work without having to work yourself up to it and into it.
	Right.
	You know, going out on scenes that were, you know, messy, let's say.
	Like.
	Define messy.
	Right.
	Like something horrible that the people listening right now would never really put thought into.
	The things that people like you have to deal with that regular people really don't ever give any thought to.
	Right.
	Like, you know, let's say like a suicide, you know, with a where, you know, a lot of blood, a lot of, you know, depending on how they actually did it.
	What's the most disgusting suicide?
	Like, which type of suicide results in the most disgusting scene?
	What do you say?
	Shotgun to the head?
	That's what I'm going with.
	Well, it's hard to say really, but yeah, I mean, that's definitely.
	You know, I would think that a hanging could be really bad too, because there's this documentary about this suicide forest in Japan.
	I forget the name of it, but people go to this forest for the specific purpose of committing suicide.
	And so.
	I've heard about that.
	Yeah, just get on YouTube.
	Yeah, just get on.
	I think it's a Vice documentary, actually.
	It's like 25 or 30 minutes long.
	Get on YouTube and take a look at that.
	It's pretty interesting.
	But one of the things I noticed in watching that is as they're filming in this forest and they come across the corpse of a man who's hung himself, the tissue on the head begins to sort of slough off after some amount of time.
	Even though the body is still hanging, apparently the bone structure is still intact enough to maintain the body hanging on a rope.
	And apparently there's enough tissue surrounding the bone still to maintain that.
	But nevertheless, I noticed that pretty much most of the flesh on this guy's face had just kind of fallen down.
	And I would think that if you come to a scene like that where someone has hanged themselves and they've gone a long time without being discovered, and everything's like dropping onto the floor, so it's splattering.
	That could be really bad, perhaps even worse than a shotgun blast.
	Well, and you know, with that, you said, you know, suicide four, so it's outside.
	So being exposed to the woods, yeah.
	Being exposed to the elements like that really plays a big difference in that, as opposed to someone that just did it in their bedroom, you know what I mean?
	What would be the difference?
	Well, being exposed, like, you have a lot...
	Get really close to the mic, almost, where your lips are pretty much touching it, almost.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Well, kind of like being exposed to the elements like that, where, you know, it's a lot easier for insects.
	You know, it might rain on you.
	You could be right in the sun, you know, things like that, that cause the decomposition process to speed up almost.
	Especially, you know, depending on what time of year it was, if it was winter, it probably wouldn't happen like that.
	But if it was, you know, mid-July and it's 100 degrees outside, then that's going to be a big difference with the decomposition process.
	See, that's kind of surprising because I would think that dying inside, indoors in that situation might be worse because everything is contained.
	You know, like there's nowhere for anything to escape to.
	Like as maggots begin to multiply, at least outdoors they can sort of dissipate and move on to other things.
	But I actually, I used to be a 911 dispatcher, and I remember one of the medics telling me that she went to a home in which a woman had died in the bathtub, which is horrible because now, and she'd gone quite some time without being discovered.
	We're talking days.
	So she's in this bathtub.
	The body's been there for days.
	She's died in water, which just really does horrible things in terms of the decomposition process.
	And as one of the medics is standing at the bathroom window from outside the structure, he lifts the window up.
	They pry it open and he lifts it up.
	He thought the glass on the window was black, but it was actually just that the window was so thoroughly covered with flies that the glass appeared to be black.
	That really gave me some, when I heard that story, that really gave me some indication as to just how horrible certain scenes could be.
	Right.
	And how I can't imagine getting into that business and having to do that.
	I mean, a lot of 911 dispatchers would eventually work their way into getting into the field.
	That was just sort of their natural progression of things, their way of making their, of advancing in that business.
	But as I was a 911 dispatcher, I had no interest in doing that because I thought, here I am.
	I'm getting paid just about as much as these people who go out into the field.
	And I do 12-hour shifts three or four days a week.
	And most of the time, you're not getting any calls.
	Most of your time is just spent playing games, playing Warcraft, whatever.
	This was back in 2001.
	And Warcraft 2, I was playing.
	Not even Warcraft 3.
	But I never had any desire to go out into the field like most dispatchers end up desiring to do.
	Because of these things that I heard, it seems like something totally impossible to acclimate yourself to, to work your way into psychologically to build up the defenses, the personal defenses you need going into those situations.
	So that was my earlier question.
	What was your process like?
	How did you acclimate?
	How did you get to where you are now being a person that I really don't think could be terribly phased by much?
	Well, when you're talking about like a process, I really, I don't know.
	It was like over time, I just, it became like an everyday thing, just seeing, you know, throughout the funeral home growing up and just seeing bodies like on a daily basis.
	And, you know, sometimes it was most of the time it was natural causes, but of course there were other ones like car accidents, suicide, homicide, stuff like that.
	But just growing up and seeing that and I can't really tell you what my process was.
	It almost just, I kind of just stepped into it almost.
	Well, I don't even necessarily mean to imply that your process was a conscious thing where you're like, okay, I need to make it through these steps.
	But I mean, like, there must have been like seminal moments where you ran into things that were really horrible and you came to the realization that if you could handle that, you could handle pretty much whatever else.
	One of the hardest things still to this day is whenever a child will pass.
	You know, whether that be, you know, with a terminal illness or some other circumstance, that's still the hardest thing to deal with.
	And you're not somebody who has kids.
	Right.
	You know, when I didn't have kids, I would really hate it when people said this shit.
	But when you do have kids, when you see stories about bad things happening to kids, whatever it is in the news, just the horrible things you see, it affects you and your gut in a way that it didn't before.
	And so I can't imagine doing your job.
	Now that I have kids and my brain has gotten rewired in certain ways, I can't imagine doing what you're doing and running into scenes with kids.
	Scenes with kids would probably be worse than kids who died a long, drawn-out death.
	Right, right.
	That's what I mean.
	Like terminal illness, I mean, that's still, it's still sad and everything, but like if it was a circumstance where it didn't have to happen, that's, you know, that is still rough.
	That is something I will never get used to.
	So you do work for the coroner's office in your county.
	You work for a mortuary service.
	Right.
	Let's say I drop dead right now and I go through not the crematory process, which is a lot shorter and sweeter.
	Right.
	But I go through the traditional process.
	I die in the hospital, let's say.
	What happens to my body from the moment I die in that hospital bed?
	Okay.
	Well, there's a number of things that could happen.
	Like, was this a sudden thing?
	No, no, I just, I had rectal cancer that spread to my brain.
	Okay, so I'm assuming at that point, I'm assuming at that point that arrangements probably were already made on you.
	And I will say it was a pretty tolerable form of cancer until it worked its way up to the, when it worked its way up to my nips, that's when I got a little perturbed.
	Then it got up my neck and everything was over.
	Thank you, honey.
	My wife, my beautiful wife, just brought some lovely Moroccan tea for us to drink.
	Thank you, honey.
	I have to blow on this.
	It's very hard.
	Oh, dear Lord.
	What am I talking about here?
	That's nice.
	Okay, so where were we?
	What was I talking about?
	What would happen?
	Okay, so yeah, I die of ass cancer that spreads to my brain.
	It ends me.
	I'm in a hospital bed, and finally they disconnect the tubes.
	Right, you know, what's going to happen?
	So I'm assuming you probably already had arrangements made.
	Let's say I don't.
	Okay, you don't.
	And nobody loves me or cares about me.
	That's a lot of people out there, by the way.
	Yeah.
	You know, when you're young, you don't think about this, but I'll bet you there are a lot of people dying out there that don't have any prearrangements, who don't have any family or friends that are going to step in to handle things.
	But they're dying in hospitals.
	Let's imagine I'm one of these people and I die.
	What's going to happen?
	Like, okay, you're one of those people.
	You have no one that would help you with step in.
	Okay, well, first thing that would happen is, you know, we would get a call about the mortuary service or the coroner's office?
	Mortuary.
	Because that's technically an assisted death or a, well, you know, different people, they call it different things, supervised death.
	You know, like a doctor was there.
	It wasn't unattended, was what I mean.
	So, I mean, do you understand what I'm saying?
	Okay.
	So the mortuary service would get called, and we would head over there and, you know, get you, put you on the stretcher, and take you back to the so they don't go to the hospital morgue usually.
	At least not in your jurisdiction.
	Well, they sometimes do, they sometimes don't.
	You know, it really depends.
	Why?
	Why does it depend?
	Well, it's just if they need to get someone out of there quick, then they'll put them in the morgue.
	Why would they need to get somebody out of there quick?
	Just space?
	You have to open the room up.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah.
	So if that's the case, well, a lot of people.
	What would happen if you didn't have the space?
	Would they just have to start calling around to different funeral homes?
	If we didn't have the space?
	Yeah, is that even possible?
	You wouldn't?
	We'd find.
	Well, dude, we've got a huge roof.
	It's got a beautiful view.
	I mean, we will find space.
	Usually three-quarters of our parking lot.
	Nobody's in there.
	I mean, there are ways.
	They'll call us.
	Don't worry.
	They will call us.
	Well, anyways.
	But I would come there, let's say, and see, and that's something else.
	The response time of the actual mortuary, if they know that we're coming right then, then they'll go ahead and leave the body in the room.
	But if it's going to take us an hour to get there, they will go ahead and put them in the morgue, if the hospital even has a morgue.
	I wonder what happened to my grandma when she died.
	Did they come scoop her up right away or did they take her down to the basement?
	To the basement.
	Was it a scary room they took her in?
	What's it, Doc?
	Well, anyways, so I would come over there.
	I would get your paperwork with what you were being treated for and stuff like that.
	You needed to know that?
	Well, you don't have to, but it's a good question.
	What does it help if you do?
	Well, it's just good to keep records.
	Just keeping records.
	Keep records.
	People may want to look into this.
	But so I would lift you over onto the stretcher and I would take you back to the mortuary.
	Now, if you don't have anyone that would authorize us to embalm within 48 hours, we would have to under state law.
	And now let's hold on just a moment.
	If you can't embalm, if you have permission to embalm, you're going to do that right away, right?
	Yes.
	And that would probably be because the blood coagulates and makes the job a lot more difficult for you if you don't do it right away.
	Right.
	And the decomposition process will start.
	And, you know, that's whenever you start getting the smells and things like that that come with it.
	And the very unpleasant look of a person that's been decaying for a while, you know.
	How long does it take for a dead body to start smelling?
	I'll bet you that really varies.
	Yeah, it varies a lot.
	A lot.
	You know, in rare cases, very rare cases, people will mummify.
	Like, that's a real thing.
	It's very rare, but that happens.
	I've seen pictures of that.
	What's the determining factor as to whether that's going to happen?
	You know, I don't even know.
	It's just everyone's different, and I think that that's...
	Do you think it's more the individual or the environment they died in?
	I almost think it's probably both.
	So anyway, the body gets taken to the mortuary service.
	You would like to embalm quickly if possible.
	Makes it a lot easier for you.
	Yeah.
	If you can't, you'll wait up to 48 hours, and then by state law, you have to embalm.
	Right.
	If we're going to be holding you for a while, you know, like to figure out.
	What if you know you're not going to be holding me for more than four days?
	Do you have to embalm?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So you have to embalm at 48 hours, no matter what.
	Right.
	Like if you have.
	Unless the body's going to be burned up.
	Right.
	But like what you said, no crematory.
	And if we can't find a family member, we'd have to do that to find somebody.
	Well, let me ask you this.
	Cremation is much less expensive than embalming and going through that whole process.
	So if the family, if there's no family to come forward, there's no prearrangement, why isn't it the law that you just do a cremation?
	Wouldn't that make more sense?
	would think but who you would sorry i'm a little uh a little i think uh we did a lot of cleaning around here before the show and i think i think some cat dust has been stirred up oh dear lord so So when we talk about embalming, people throw that word around, but I don't think a lot of people really truly understand what embalming entails.
	You bring a body in.
	Is the body completely naked?
	Yes.
	No towel even.
	You're just completely naked.
	Now let me ask you a question.
	Do you take a look?
	Do you take a peek?
	Do I take a peek?
	I think in those circumstances.
	I mean, do you ever see a man with an incredibly large penis and you're just like, oh my goodness, what a life this man had.
	What an existence this gentleman had.
	I'll just stand and at attention salute for a moment and marvel at the existence that this man was blessed with.
	Do you ever do that?
	I can't say that I do.
	I always keep in mind that this is someone's love.
	But you've noticed some really huge penises.
	I have noticed huge penises.
	And some remarkably inadequate ones as well.
	Yes.
	Yeah, really?
	I mean, that is every walk of life on your table.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah, that's amazing.
	So it's been a great interview, and have a good night, everybody.
	Yeah.
	So you're on the table.
	You're completely naked.
	And let's say they're probably entirely different processes relative to whether the person is brought in two hours after they die or 47 hours after they die.
	I'm imagining the embalming process differs between those two.
	Does it?
	Okay, hold on.
	Say that again.
	If someone's brought in right away to be embalmed, is the embalming process the same as would be for someone who's been dead for almost 48 hours?
	Yeah, well, it depends, once again, on the decomposition at that point, because everyone, some people can decay really quickly.
	They can decay fast, and others can just, you know, others can it takes a while to decay.
	Okay, well, let's start at the basics here.
	What is the explicit purpose of embalming?
	Preservation, right?
	Right.
	That's it.
	There's no unseen purpose that I'm not aware of.
	No, it's all it is.
	Preservation of the body.
	Right.
	It's got nothing to do with preventing the spread of disease, nothing of that nature.
	Well, it does kill pretty much everything.
	So, I guess there could be post-mortem growth that would occur without embalming that doesn't occur with embalming.
	Like hairs, things like that.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Fingernails.
	So embalming will actually prevent that post-mortem growth.
	No.
	It won't?
	No.
	So the post-mortem growth, hair, fingernails, whatever, that will continue even after a body's been embalmed.
	I mean, it's not much.
	It's not like it's only like three feet, dude.
	Deuter.
	It's only three feet.
	You know, we dug a body up two weeks after he died.
	He looked like Doug Clifford from CCR.
	He really had some post-mortem growth.
	That's growth after death for the layman.
	I just want to put that out there.
	But, you know, with what you were saying about, you know, preventing diseases, embalming does not kill hepatitis C, which is, I thought was interesting.
	So Hep C can survive embalming fluid.
	Yeah, it is like one of the hardest diseases to kill.
	Or just forms of microbial life.
	Right.
	To kill.
	Yeah, it's very, very tough to kill.
	That's really interesting.
	Okay, so embalming is just for the purpose of preservation.
	Let's pretend rather than the 47-year-old body, we've got a perfect scenario with a body that's been dead only maybe an hour or two, and you're going to embark upon the embalming process.
	Everything's going to go perfectly.
	What do you do?
	What's the process?
	So like what you're asking is if we get a body in there and it's just everything goes exactly as it should.
	As it should.
	Like how would we do that?
	Yeah.
	What's just from the very first step?
	What do you do?
	You got this naked body on a stainless steel slab with a remarkably large penis.
	What do you do?
	Well, see, a lot of times you have to clean them.
	Well, every time.
	Like with a sponge?
	No, I. Like bathe the body.
	I mean, you can.
	Some embalmers will do that.
	You prefer a hose?
	Is that what you use?
	Really?
	You do use a hose.
	Well, it's not like an actual garden hose, but it's like, I mean, we're not just animals.
	It's just a sprinkler system.
	Everything is soaked.
	You should see some kids with one of those black water slides somewhere as you're doing it.
	It's just a total disaster.
	But we would get them on the table.
	We would clean them because a lot of times, and it's not every time, but, you know.
	They shit themselves?
	Yes.
	That's really it?
	Yeah.
	That or they'll, you know, they'll piss themselves or something like that.
	Because the, you know, you got to think, if they had to pee before they died and that muscle that, you know, can prevent you from peeing is no longer there.
	You know, it'd be hilarious if when somebody died, but they had to pee at the time they died, the pee just went away, and modern science hasn't figured out why that is.
	They can't figure out what happens.
	Maybe your pee is the soul and it just leaves the body.
	You know, I think suddenly I have a desire to become a scientist.
	I want to help humanity figure out the answers to these questions.
	That is what made me want to do that.
	That's why I got into the death bit.
	Where does the piss go?
	Okay, so people piss.
	Are there other reasons you might clean somebody?
	Well, if they were just, if they died in a, you know, depending on how they died, you know, like if they were just a dirty person, you know, like in the environment that they lived in, you know, maybe they just didn't shower for, you know, okay, let's let's follow that line of thought.
	Okay.
	You've seen some people come through who are just dirty motherfuckers.
	Yeah.
	Absolutely.
	What have you, how have you seen that manifest itself in people?
	Have you found mushrooms growing under people's fat flaps?
	No.
	Pretty close.
	Oh, boy.
	Okay, well, describe pretty close.
	I mean, what's some of the horrible stuff you've seen?
	I would just be a stupid.
	It's not close.
	You know, like, for example, someone that just kind of, they just quit taking care of themselves.
	You know, they quit showering.
	They didn't bother to go to the bathroom, get up to go to the bathroom.
	They just did it on themselves.
	Oh, people really descend to that point, I guess, don't they?
	Oh, yeah.
	What has to happen for you to get to the point where you know what?
	I'm just going to shit.
	And I don't care.
	You know what?
	You can accept me for me or not.
	I'm going to shit.
	That's really a state to descend to.
	Yeah.
	And, you know, at that point, just not showering for that long and then just defecating and urinating on yourself.
	And, you know, that it's having that more or less caked on you like that is definitely something we need to clean up.
	Especially if we're going to be showing that body.
	We don't want to present that body to the family with a dirty ass.
	It almost sounds like something.
	If we're going to be showing that, you know, if I'm going to put an ad in the Missouri and to let people know that this is free for the taking, it's got to look presentable.
	It's got to look good.
	I mean, we're going to stick by our job here.
	People have got to know.
	Nobody's selling them a lemon.
	So you may have to clean the body.
	And in the process of that, I'm sure that.
	Have you actually done that?
	Has cleaning the body been something?
	See, I can't.
	I can't imagine you doing that because you're really picky about how and what you eat.
	And you're really averse to just gross things.
	Yeah.
	And to imagine you sponging away some fat guy's, fat dead guy's liquid shit.
	I can't connect that.
	Yeah.
	How does that work?
	I don't know.
	Are you like compensating for the horrible nature of all of that through your peculiarities in the rest of your life?
	Am I compensating for it?
	Are you trying to like adjust the balance beam?
	Who knows?
	Maybe.
	Maybe subconsciously that's what I'm doing.
	So you clean these people and once that's over with, how do you determine they're clean enough?
	You just it looks like the shit's gone or is it based on smell?
	Well, I mean, I would, you said something about a sponge earlier, and I should have made that clear.
	We do use a sponge if it's called for, you know, and most of the time, yeah.
	And then we also disinfect.
	You spray.
	It's this special disinfectant that you can get from, you know, someone who is like a mortuary.
	They make products for mortuaries, and it kills pretty much everything, you know, the HIV virus, the herpes virus, stuff like that.
	So, or like if someone had the flu, you know, and you spray it in their mouth, you spray it on their genitals, and it just disinfects it, you know.
	Because an embalmer can get sick very, very easily.
	By raping a body that hasn't been sprayed.
	You just keep going back to that.
	It's like you're trying to get me to say something.
	People in the chat room typing, um, no.
	I don't know if that's directed at anything you've said, which I know some of this can be upsetting to hear to some of you.
	So, what I'm really wanting to make sure the audience understands after all of this tonight is that when you die, please make sure you're not caked with shit.
	Please make sure you've bathed.
	Please make sure you leave a note explaining to people what to do with the thermostat.
	These things.
	You need to make a note.
	Leave a note.
	You don't want some guy standing there sponging you after death.
	Make sure you're keeping up with things.
	You will be looked down upon.
	And they will hang a sign under your casket at the presentation that says, had to sponge off.
	Just to let everybody know.
	You have to sponge off.
	When you come into the chapel, if the lights overhead are green, they didn't have to sponge.
	If they're red, you know what went down.
	I mean, you understand what we're talking about, right?
	Yeah.
	So you clean the body off.
	Did you really answer that question?
	How you know if you're done cleaning?
	Well, I mean, you just know, right?
	Is that okay?
	Yeah, pretty well.
	There's no reason to dwell too much more on that.
	Okay, so you get the body cleaned off.
	What's next?
	Usually that's whenever the first incision goes into the jugular at that point.
	And the embalming fluid will start to be pumped in.
	Okay, so you make an incision into the jugular.
	Yeah.
	And the carotid artery.
	And you insert a tube.
	And I'm guessing as you make that incision, you try to make the incision slightly smaller than the circumference of the tube itself so that the tube can sort of stretch to keep leakage from happening.
	Well, not really.
	I mean, I would think you would need to do that.
	It's like a metal tube, and it's a metal cylinder thing, and then it's attached to a rubber tube.
	Are you following?
	And then you cut into the jugular, or it depends.
	Embalmers, they each kind of have their own way of doing it.
	But from what I know, you can cut into the jugular, and then you insert that down in there.
	Insert the rubber tube?
	No, the metal.
	Oh, the rubber is at the other end of the tube going into the equipment.
	Right, right.
	It's attached to it going in.
	How far into the jugular does that metal rod go?
	Now, this isn't the same metal rod that you showed me one time that you stab with.
	No, this is a lot.
	We'll get to that, ladies and gentlemen.
	We will get to that.
	This is a lot.
	It's a lot smaller, but it's.
	It's straight.
	It's metal.
	It's a rod.
	You insert it in the jugular, and it begins pumping fluid into the cardiovascular system.
	Well, you start basically you're draining the blood out.
	Oh, you're sucking.
	No, no, you're not sucking now.
	You start.
	It's kind of complicated.
	I'm going to try to.
	You insert that metal piece, and then as you start injecting the embalming fluid, and it's going, you know, you got to think at this point, it's going through all the veins.
	So at that same point that you cut, blood is coming out of that too.
	And the way that you know you're done is when embalming fluid is the only thing coming out now.
	Like you have gotten all the blood out of this person.
	And do you wait until the color perfectly matches what's going in versus what's coming out?
	Or does it get to a point where you're just like, okay, it's close enough?
	What do you mean?
	Well, you're pumping in embalming fluid.
	It's got a certain color to it.
	The blood coming out has a certain color to it.
	So when the liquid coming out gets close to looking as though it's got no blood in it.
	No, it is embalming fluid.
	Yeah, it's perfectly embalming fluid.
	It has no appearance of blood at that point.
	Right, right.
	Wow.
	And what happens if you are a cheap mortician?
	I'm going to save $48 on embalming fluid this month, and you just don't continue on until it looks like nothing but pure embalming fluid coming out.
	What's going to wind up happening to that body?
	Well, okay.
	See, not so much that.
	What people do, some embalmers that just want to get it done real quick, with these embalming machines, there's like low pressure, high pressure, and of course high pressure, it pumps it through a lot quicker to get it done faster.
	The way we always did it was low pressure and then have them on the table kind of at a slant so gravity could go ahead and help too.
	You know what I mean?
	Heads slanted down or up?
	Heads, yeah, heads up.
	Okay.
	Right.
	But see, a lot of embalmers to get it done quick, they use the high pressure.
	Sorry.
	They didn't even realize that.
	But they use a high pressure.
	So what that does, it expands the veins and the arteries, and these people look swollen in their neck and in their face because they did it too fast and they pumped that pressure in too quick.
	If that makes sense.
	And I would think that there are a lot of capillaries throughout the body, just tiny little teeny veins that just don't have time to empty.
	Right.
	If you're just forcing everything through at a really high rate.
	You know, and everybody is, like, there's no set time for embalming someone.
	Everyone's going to take a different time.
	Some people can go quick.
	Some people can, you know, it could take a long time.
	Like, how long?
	A few hours.
	Wow, really?
	Yeah.
	And what's the fast end?
	Well, depending our fast end with the low pressure system, 30 to 45 minutes.
	Okay.
	I had in mind six minutes?
	Six.
	Like, we are really going.
	We are just crunching through bodies.
	You won't believe this place.
	we're the mcdonald's of mortuary services okay so is this something that a family member can ask a mortician as they are dropping off a body or as they're making arrangements will you agree to use a low pressure embalming machine on my body I guess they could ask that.
	I mean, they really.
	The mortician is going to be like, fuck.
	See, yeah, okay.
	That's what I'll do.
	I'm going to do whatever I want.
	But I don't know.
	I guess they could ask.
	No one really ever has, though, you know?
	I'm the type of person to want, and could you please use a low-pressure, I'm like, I would be like, Kramer, will you be using a retractor?
	Just you have no reason to be asking this professional any questions of that nature, but you are asking.
	Okay, so low pressure is much better.
	People who have embalming fluid pushed through their bodies with high pressure, which is beneficial to the mortician because he can get done more quickly.
	Yeah.
	But the people who have it done at a high pressure look bloated.
	Yes.
	And abnormal.
	Yeah.
	You can definitely tell.
	In the face.
	Yes.
	Everything.
	And in their neck.
	And not so much like the hands.
	Well, that's a shame that any mortician would do that.
	I mean, this is.
	And you can tell immediately.
	Really?
	Yes, you definitely can.
	That's really a shame.
	I mean, here is the final presentation of somebody's body.
	I mean, every one of these people, regardless of how disconnected you might become to the humanity of it all, you still have to remember that these are somebody's loved one.
	And it's going to be the final presentation.
	It's going to be the last time.
	Yes, the final moment of them having a physical look at that person's vessel.
	Absolutely.
	And you're going to just, you know what?
	I got fucking golf to play.
	I mean, really?
	And I'm sure it really is that simple.
	I've got my wife's making sandwiches.
	That fucking rye bread don't taste too good when it sits there.
	You got to eat that.
	That's really amazing.
	I'm surprised that there aren't just industry-wide standards that say this is the PSI, let's say.
	I don't know how they would measure it, but this is the acceptable PSI, let's say, for the sake of explanation that you can use when embalming a body.
	I'm surprised this isn't all standardized.
	Right.
	You would think, but, I mean, hell, they got regulations on everything else.
	You know, just like with any other industry, there's always some sort of regulation you would think there would be on that.
	What are some other things in the industry that are not regulated that you are surprised by as a professional in that industry?
	Is there anything that comes to mind like that?
	Maybe not like that, but just anything that comes to mind.
	Things that we would think are regulated but are not.
	Hmm.
	Oh, that's a tough one.
	I can't really.
	Maybe like things you're allowed to do with a body after death that people wouldn't assume you're allowed to do.
	You can place the body in an Oster blender as long as you do it in a six-plus unit apartment complex.
	That's Ohio state law.
	That's Ohio state law.
	That's what that is.
	Very strange.
	Goes back to Puritanical Puritan days.
	The Puritans.
	The Anglo-Saxons.
	They were very involved with this kind of practice.
	They loved those Oster blenders.
	That's the Chinese Walmart variety.
	Chinese Walmart.
	So, okay, you're going to pump this embalming fluid.
	And again, we're talking about the embalming process with a body where everything goes as it should.
	And let's say your service, because you guys do things the right way, you're going to pump the embalming fluid in at low pressure to avoid bloated, horrible appearances after the fact.
	And the embalming fluid, by the way, is it the same embalming fluid that's been used since the beginning of embalming, or has it changed much like Freon in the AC business?
	Oh, it's changed.
	Has it really?
	Yeah, just because there's different kinds of embalming fluid.
	You don't want to use the same.
	Not everyone takes embalming fluid, takes the same embalming fluid, I mean.
	Like, you know, there's different embalming fluids for different people, and you can tell by the big one is like the pigment of their skin.
	You know, like, you can't, like, a lot of embalming fluid that we've used is pink.
	It's like a pink color.
	And you can see, like, whenever you're pumping that in, and their skin will start kind of looking natural, you know, because when someone passes it, they definitely, their skin, and maybe, of course, I notice it because I've been around it for so long, but maybe you wouldn't, you know what I mean?
	You wouldn't notice how, okay, yeah, they just don't look the same, you know.
	I can tell they're dead.
	You know what I mean?
	But this, the embalming fluid will kind of bring color back into their face and everything.
	You can actually see it working, too.
	So a proper embalming process probably has far more to do with the presentation of a body than the makeup job afterward.
	Am I right to say that?
	Yeah, like, if you have a shitty embalmer, it's just going to make every all the jobs after that a lot harder.
	When you say, like, if you have a shitty embalmer, and I'm just imagining some guy ramming a funnel down the dead body's throat.
	He's just pouring it like he really just wasn't proficient.
	He does this on the weekends.
	Oh, that's good stuff.
	Okay.
	So the embalming process completes.
	You get to the point where you're seeing embalming fluid coming out of that hole in the jugular rather than blood or a mixture of blood and embalming fluid.
	And you said you choose your embalming fluid based on the skin tone, the natural skin tone of the dead body.
	So you're not going to use the same embalming fluid on a white guy and a black guy.
	Well, see, no, probably not.
	Unless you're just short of embalming fluid.
	And it's like, you know what?
	I'm sorry.
	Right.
	I am not going to Costco.
	I'm not doing it.
	And they have that at Costco.
	I am not going to Sam's club.
	Even though it is 6 a.m. and I'll get a discount over every, I am not going.
	I'm not doing it.
	But no.
	And, you know, there's a lot of factors that determine their height, their weight, their body size in general and things like that.
	And, you know, there's also this dye that you can put into embalming fluid.
	And you just do like basically teaspoons because it's really strong.
	And if you put too much in there, that person could actually glow.
	Glow as in what?
	Define that.
	Glow.
	Like a Timex watch.
	Glow stick.
	Why?
	Because so much dye in there.
	You mean if you turn the lights off, you'll see the body glowing?
	I mean, it's not like you have to cover your eyes.
	No, but I mean, are you talking about like a Timex watch or something?
	What do you mean?
	When you're saying glow, are you mean the body will emanate light?
	Light will emanate from the body?
	Yeah.
	What?
	Yeah.
	What's happening to cause that?
	From dye.
	So if you turn the light off, you will see light coming from the body.
	It's not like, it's hard to explain.
	It's not like light, but there's a slight glow to this person, and that is a big, big fuck-up in the funeral business if you do that.
	So what you're basically saying is that the skin becomes glisteny.
	Well, it's so red.
	Shiny.
	It's so red.
	Like this dye is like a red color.
	It's a dark red.
	And if you just dump, because you're supposed to use like a teaspoon, a couple teaspoons, if you want to call it that.
	But if you would just dump that whole bottle in there and this has happened, not with us, but that body will actually glow.
	Like it's so red.
	Every part of their body is doing this.
	It is this red color that is so strong that it like a slight glow will happen.
	I guess I'm getting thrown by the word glow because when you say when you use that word, I'm imagining that the body is actually like some kind of crazy physiological process has happened and the body is now like a giant version of the ass of a lightning bug.
	Is that what's happening?
	It's not quite like that.
	It's some very powerful liquid that they're pumping into your body.
	I mean, it's just.
	Okay.
	So basically what you're saying is that the body becomes really reflective.
	Yeah, like they're shiny.
	Okay, maybe glow wasn't the well.
	You know what?
	That was a bad word to use.
	No, it wasn't, actually.
	I mean, it's.
	I would have to see this, I guess, wouldn't I?
	Yeah, it's hard to really describe.
	You would have to see it to believe.
	You don't always use this dye?
	No.
	No way.
	What determines if you do?
	If someone is just like pale, really pale.
	Isn't that everybody, though?
	No.
	No.
	I guess nothing is everybody, right?
	Everything is different.
	Any variable you could imagine is going to vary from body to body.
	Yeah, and you know, after someone passes, especially just like a white, you know, let's just say a white female.
	You know, their skin after they pass on is just it's really pale.
	It's real pale looking.
	And then the embalming fluid brings color back to them.
	And if you need a little bit more, that's where that dye comes in.
	Really just brings the color back into their face.
	Is it possible just to be different?
	Just to be unique?
	Look, I want green dye.
	Can you request that?
	Can you request these weird things?
	I want my body to look like the Incredible Hulk.
	You know something, actually, someone that dies from liver cancer or something, you know how they're, usually they're jaundice.
	Right.
	You know, let's just say any liver disease and their jaundice.
	If you embalm them the same way you would embalm just someone that didn't have any liver issues, that body will turn green.
	Because of how the liver, with them being jaundiced anyways, and you know, like I'm talking really jaundice.
	Have you ever seen like a really jaundice person?
	I've seen jaundice, but I don't know if it could be called really jaundiced.
	Because, you know.
	I mean, yellow skin.
	I'm talking like dark yellow.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, like someone.
	There's been several times, you know, we've picked up someone that's had, like, liver cancer, and they are, they finally pass, and they are literally just a dark yellow, just their whole body.
	And if you would embalm them the same way that you would embalm just someone who didn't have that, that body, the way the embalming fluid would react with how John is, they, I don't know if you're...
	Well, I think what it really is, is the lack of liver function is leaving something behind in the body that otherwise would be thrown off through waste, pissing and shitting.
	And...
	And since whatever it is that's left behind is there in such great amounts, there must be a chemical reaction.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's a chemical reaction.
	They will actually turn a green color.
	Do you know what it is?
	I'm sure there's somebody listening who knows what it is that the embalming fluid is reacting.
	I guess the question would be, what is being left behind in the body that otherwise would be removed from the body through the natural processes of the liver?
	What's left behind in a malfunctioning liver that's reacting?
	That would be interesting.
	You don't know.
	No, I don't know.
	I just know it does that.
	Well, don't come into my studio calling yourself a professional.
	There's the door.
	Get the hell out of me.
	No, you can't finish the tea.
	No, and that's mine.
	i own the glass and the chair is sitting in um okay so you are not going what what are you going to use on the guy who's got liver cancer There's just like a different type of embalming fluid that you can use on that.
	It's not pink?
	No.
	What is it?
	I don't know.
	Embalming fluid varies, man.
	There's different kinds of things.
	So it's not about the color of the embalming fluid so much as it is just about the chemicals in the embalming fluid.
	Right.
	Yeah, pretty much.
	It's not like you're using food coloring on a human body.
	I mean, that pink, though, that really does help.
	That pink color.
	It really helps, and you can definitely see it reacting with the skin as it's being pumped into it.
	So you wrap up with the embalming process.
	You've got embalming fluid coming out of the body as opposed to blood through that incision you made in the jugular?
	Well, jugular or carotid artery.
	Okay.
	One's coming and one's going, right?
	Right.
	I mean, they're right next to each other.
	Okay.
	And when you reach the end of that process, do you leave all that embalming fluid in the body and you seal up the hole?
	Yeah, you sew it up.
	Well, I mean, we sew it up.
	You know, sometimes other funeral directors or embalmers would do it a different way.
	Glue it.
	That seems like it might be better.
	Is gluing better than sewing?
	No, we always sewed.
	Why?
	It was just tight.
	We like to sew.
	We like to sew.
	What kind of question is that?
	What we like.
	Stop pressuring.
	Stop pestering.
	So you sew them up, and then hopefully at this point, you've done a good job embalming and you don't have to worry so much about the makeup job.
	But the makeup job is probably an important aspect.
	Oh, yeah.
	Would you say it's which is more important?
	The embalming or the makeup?
	Are they equally important?
	Equally important.
	Okay.
	What's the worst makeup job you've ever seen?
	Oh, jeez.
	A lot of funeral homes do this.
	We always did it like, well, we do it.
	We always do it by hand.
	All the makeup by hand.
	Going through, putting a lipstick on, you know, and stuff like that.
	As opposed to some funeral homes, they're using a system of ropes and pulleys.
	No.
	And it just doesn't look.
	I'm talking about spray paint.
	Oh, really?
	They spray paint on their face.
	And, well, I shouldn't say spray paint, but it's pretty much what it is.
	It's like they think it, I never thought it looked good, but they think it looks good to put like this orange on their face.
	It's like a spray paint, though.
	It's like in a can like that.
	Do you get what I mean?
	Yeah.
	I think they may have done that to my grandmother in retrospect as I think back.
	You get what I'm saying.
	You can definitely tell.
	Yeah, I think it allows someone who has no makeup skills to do the job.
	It's not that it looks better.
	It's that it looks good enough and they don't have to bring in a makeup professional.
	Right.
	And then you don't have to.
	You can almost half-ass the lipstick and, you know, if it's a woman, the eyeliner and stuff, you know.
	But even like on men, you know, we still put makeup on them.
	I thought my grandmother looked absolutely horrible when she died.
	I mean, I would, yeah, I mean, had I not known that was her, I may not have known that was her.
	Really?
	You think it was just because are 84-year-old ladies harder to prepare than 22-year-old girls?
	Well, it just depends.
	There's no rule of thumb on that?
	No, not really.
	They just did a shit job.
	I mean, there are some 80-year-olds that it's like, wow, that was just an easy embalming.
	Great.
	Well, that went well.
	Great plumbing she had.
	Great plumbing.
	She was great.
	We should call the family and say, listen, I know you're sad about the death and everything.
	I just want you to know she had a set of pipes.
	We were able to flush her out quickly.
	It was a work of, it was a miracle.
	By the way, if you have any questions you'd like to ask about the death business, if you'd like to talk to Matthew about things that maybe you have questions about, maybe you've seen things in a funeral home that you had questions about, maybe you have questions about the process of working a death scene, you're more than welcome to call in.
	The numbers 573-837-4948.
	That is 573-837-4948 if you have questions you'd like to ask.
	So you are not people using the spray.
	You prefer to do by hand.
	It looks more natural, and I think it looks better.
	So when I ask you about horrible makeup jobs, just almost reflexively, you think immediately about these people spraying that.
	I think that's what they did to her.
	Now that you say that, see, I don't know enough about this process to have given that any thought.
	Had you seen her pretty close to the time she died?
	I was with her body for like an hour immediately after she died.
	I mean, but like you saw her when she was still alive pretty like it wasn't like three years and you just went to the funeral.
	Right.
	We were very close.
	I saw her regularly up to death and immediately after.
	But it was a you went to the visitation or the funeral, whatever, and you said it didn't even really look like her.
	Like it was.
	She looked frightening to me.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I found it very off-putting.
	She looked gaunt and.
	Did she look like bloated?
	No.
	Wasn't that?
	Almost like she'd had a facelift.
	Really?
	Well, see, that's a thing.
	With someone's face that, like, sinks in.
	Uh-huh.
	There's, like, I don't want to say Botox, but it's kind of like that.
	And you can stick a syringe, a needle, and just kind of raise their face, like pump it into different places and just kind of raise the face up.
	Make it seem more full, you know.
	So you're blaming my grandmother's face for this, not the funeral home.
	That's what you're saying.
	Yeah, yeah.
	No.
	I mean, if you couldn't even recognize her and you had seen her before.
	It was pretty bad.
	You know, I would feel like the mortuary industry, it's got a good two or three centuries.
	I would say the mortuary business probably has not changed that much in terms of the preservation and presentation of bodies.
	Probably has not changed that much in the last hundred years.
	And I would think that the processes that exist in that industry have, by this point, been perfected to such a degree that you would never go to a funeral and say, my God, he looked horrible.
	She looked horrible.
	Yeah.
	Thankfully, I mean, usually the people that say that they look like that are people that hadn't seen him in 10 years.
	Wow, that didn't even look like him.
	Okay, well, get the hell out of here.
	How about that?
	Like, what are you showing up for?
	He changed.
	Sorry.
	I don't want to tell you.
	You don't look the same either.
	Someone needs to really use a different embalming fluid on you.
	Are they doing high pressure on you?
	I don't know.
	You don't look the way I remember you.
	GC Jeff, dude, totally high pressure.
	I am not recommending this.
	Okay, so let's see.
	You get the body cleaned up.
	You've got the hole all sealed up.
	You leave the embalming fluid in.
	Hopefully, if you've got a mortuary service that knows which way is up, they're going to use a makeup artist as opposed to run Popil's bald spot spray.
	See, and after we do that, then we do something that's called aspirating.
	And that was that metal, you know what I mean.
	Well, let me describe this because I've been in the embalming room and I've seen pretty much every tool of the trade in there.
	And a lot of people don't realize that one of these tools that you're going to see as you're standing in there is a long metal rod with a spear-tipped end and some holes in the end and a tube running from the handle part of that metal rod into some equipment.
	What's going to happen with this rod?
	And this is after you've embalmed the body.
	Right.
	It goes right into the sink.
	And you go, you know, once again, this is another thing where some embalmers do it differently.
	I'll just tell you the way we did it.
	Or we do it.
	You it's right around the belly button.
	You can go up a little bit from the belly button and you just stab them with that I can't even think of what the damn thing's called, but that instrument that we use for that.
	And see, what that's doing is we're getting out, you know, because we put all that embalming fluid in, but there's still blood in these organs in there.
	So you are just puncturing all these organs and sucking the blood out of there.
	And that blood's going right into the sink.
	And so, you know, you've got to get the heart, the liver, the kidneys, you know, everything like that.
	And then you put something in called cavity filler after that, put that in there, and it hardens everything.
	So the cavity fill.
	Okay, so let me get, let me understand this.
	As you're stabbing the body with this metal rod and you are removing the blood from the various organs, what do you do?
	Do you just like, let's say you're stabbing the liver, you just stab it in and hold it in there and just let it rest for a while?
	No.
	Or you just kind of going every direction.
	You're just in and out, in and out, different directions, up, down, left, right.
	Right.
	You don't want to go in too far because it could puncture and go through their back.
	And that's not a good scenario.
	I would imagine not.
	You're going to have to grab some cork or something.
	What do you plug the other end up with if that happens?
	I mean, surely that's something that can happen.
	Oh, yeah.
	It's very easy to do that.
	And so it does happen, right?
	And when it does.
	That's one of those things you just have to get good at it.
	You know what I mean?
	And I mean, that could happen to anyone.
	You just kind of underestimate how thick this person actually is and just goes right in.
	And so if you stab them all the way through, you could have fluid leaking into the casket.
	You've got a big problem.
	Oh, you do?
	Yeah.
	There's no really surefire way to plug that up.
	Well, no, I mean, you can, but it's just, it's going to be, even if you seal it up, it could still leak a little bit.
	You know what I mean?
	And that cavity filler could be coming through and stuff like that.
	You know, when my great-grandmother died, I don't know if it was because she had so many tubes and shit going into her body when she died, or if it was because maybe they messed up with this process now that I think about it.
	But I remember there being several spots on her clothing, and I remember some spot on her pillow where I was seeing fluid leakage.
	Oh, really?
	I mean, that does happen.
	I mean, that.
	What's it usually caused by?
	Well.
	You think it's more likely that it was just leaking from all these holes where she had been stuck with needles and stuff?
	Yeah, that and just with all that fluid being in there and then doing that aspirating and everything, they kind of purge, you know, sometimes.
	And sometimes it'll come out their ears.
	It could come out their nose.
	What do you mean?
	The body purges?
	Yeah.
	What does that mean?
	Like, they'll just start leaking out of their mouth.
	Oh.
	You know what I mean?
	embalming flood is that what it's yeah but it it looks a lot different I don't know.
	It's like a dark, I don't know.
	It's hard to describe.
	But they leak.
	How about that?
	It's a very dark, viscous fluid.
	We in the morticians business call it prune sauce.
	Prune sauce.
	That's the professional term.
	It's called prune sauce.
	Like, I'll turn to my coworkers and say, we've got a body that's prune saucing in the chapel.
	I think we've got a prune sauce.
	It's a verb.
	Prune sauce in chapel too.
	Prune.
	Okay, so you start stabbing this body with this rod.
	You're in and out, up and down, left and right, in one particular hole.
	Yeah.
	You're using the same hole.
	Yeah.
	You're not just randomly braveheart.
	You're not really coming out of the hole either, fully with that.
	With a when that spear.
	I can't think of the damn name of it.
	You're staying in enough that the spear doesn't, the tip does not come out of the hole.
	Right.
	Because the whole time you're doing this, blood and other bodily fluids are rushing into those holes on the end of the rod and making their way into the sink at the other end that the tube's going into.
	Right.
	And what's the what's the what's the pressure causing all of that to rush through the rod?
	It's like a suction.
	That thing.
	Oh, it's sucking?
	It's sucking.
	That's what those holes.
	Oh, so it is actually sucking.
	Yeah.
	So there's a vacuum unit.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's powered.
	Right, right.
	Okay, I didn't know that.
	Oh, boy.
	Well, do you remember whenever you saw that?
	Remember that it was like a big metal piece that was sitting in the sink?
	I don't remember that.
	Oh, okay.
	Well, I was so taken by the rod itself.
	Yeah, it's pretty.
	It's just what that thing has done.
	It's pretty intimidating looking in it.
	It's really nasty looking.
	So you do that.
	And it's just sucking out the blood.
	It's sucking out, you know, feces and urine and stuff like that.
	Oh, wow.
	You're getting the intestines.
	You're getting everything.
	Oh, my God.
	So it's actually pulling the organs out.
	The organs are becoming kind of liquefied by this thing.
	Or is it just liquids that are coming back through these holes?
	Just liquids.
	There's no tissue.
	You get some tissue, but not much.
	Golly.
	What a nasty, nasty business.
	Yeah.
	And see, that's something that, you know.
	A lot of people don't know that.
	I'm sure that this process you just described, I think most people did not know that happened.
	They understood the embalming thing.
	Right.
	But they don't know that they then get internally raped with a metal rod.
	And this is happening in the hole you said just above the belly button.
	Yeah.
	Is there anywhere else you're making an injection?
	Are you making it all the way up to the heart and the lungs and the kidneys and everything else through this one hole?
	Through that one hole.
	You are.
	Yeah.
	Well, that's some skill.
	Yeah, it is.
	Actually, because you've got plenty of obstructions in your way.
	Oh, yeah.
	And to know when you've done it right as you're doing it, that would really be something.
	Oh, yeah.
	Okay, I tell you what, we're going to take a quick break.
	Just, you know, we would like to stand up for a little bit and just sort of hang for a moment.
	So we'll take a little time out here.
	And I can hear my offspring screaming in the background.
	That's not helping matters either.
	We'll take a little break and be back in just a bit.
	If you'd like to call in, you have any questions for Matthew tonight on the Gabcast, the number's 573-837-4948.
	That's 573-837-4948.
	in a minute.
	This is the Gabcast.
	My name's Michael Van Dieven.
	I go by MV over at Bell Gab.
	I'm here with my friend Matthew, who works in the mortuary business and also is an assistant through the coroner's office, works death scenes and has a lifetime of experience with and exposure to death.
	And we're just sort of talking about that whole process tonight.
	And Matthew, before we went to break, we were talking about this metal rod that you repeatedly stab the internal organs with after the body has been embalmed.
	You poke the little hole above the belly button and you just suck all that juice out of those internal organs through some small holes at the spear-tipped end of this rod.
	There's a vacuum unit that sort of sucks all that fluid out into a sink, and I guess I was going to, my last question that we never quite got to was how many holes are you going to poke in this body?
	I know you try to do as much as you can through just one hole.
	Are you going to do any other holes or are you usually just one hole?
	Really?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	With our experience with it, anyways.
	So that is, I mean, that is a real skill set to be able to hit all those organs.
	You've got to know some anatomy and you've got to just, I would imagine, be able to feel things as you're holding that rod in your hand, just jamming it.
	Well, the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, intestines.
	You can definitely tell whenever you hit a vital organ like that.
	You can tell whenever you've hit the heart because a lot of blood will come flowing out of that into the sink really fast.
	It's almost explosive, I guess.
	Yeah, yeah, in a sense.
	How about that?
	Oh, I know.
	So once you are, how do you know you're finished with this process?
	When you're just not really getting much out of it anymore.
	Like, there's no more blood coming out, and now you're just, you know, like what you said earlier with like tissue.
	Very little tissue comes out with the fluid.
	Right.
	And it's.
	And part of the reason for this is also to give the embalming fluid an opportunity to make its way into these organs, is it not?
	Right.
	Because, you know, even with pumping that embalming fluid into, you know, the veins and the arteries like that, you know, whenever you basically, that's just like sitting blood in a sense.
	You know, it's just sitting.
	That's why whenever you do that.
	Because those organs would just sit in there and rot.
	And you would have an odor at that point.
	So, you know, this is just something that this is a bit of a tangent, but it's something that just popped into my mind that I wanted to ask you about.
	A buddy of mine, his mom died, and she was on the floor only for about 24 hours before somebody found her.
	And when she was discovered, she had enough time lying there dead that there was a bloody mess that had to be cleaned up.
	I mean, how common is that?
	Well, it depends.
	Like, did she maybe fall and hit her head or something?
	No, no.
	She just sort of collapsed and then began rotting.
	And there was a bloody mess on the floor?
	There was a mess that had to be cleaned up, yeah.
	How unusual is that?
	That struck me.
	And she had even started to decay.
	I mean, she already by that point smelled like a corpse.
	And That's really, I mean, is that unusual?
	Is that something that is common?
	I would think not.
	24 hours is not long.
	No, it's not long.
	And, you know, like what I had said earlier with.
	They had to give her a closed casket funeral.
	Did they, really?
	Because her deterioration had progressed so much.
	It just sped up really fast.
	And she didn't die in a warm home with a humidifier running three feet away from her or anything.
	I mean, it was just a normal home.
	Well, see, a lot of people, whenever they pass like that, they'll just sort of well, they'll sort of leak.
	And through the orifices or orify?
	What's the plural?
	I don't know.
	But through like their asshole and other orifices, or is it just like the skin begins to sort of lose its cohesiveness?
	Yeah, it almost seeps.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	And once again, you know, that's not everybody.
	Sometimes.
	But, you know, if she was decaying like that, that quick, you know, that's not too surprising that you would have a mess like that.
	She must not have been eating very many processed foods with preservatives.
	There must have been some.
	Because I would think if you're eating enough Twinkies, if you're eating enough ramen noodles, you're going to be able to lie there in great shape for three days minimum without much deterioration.
	I would definitely think so.
	She must have been eating purely organic, shopping at Whole Foods a lot.
	She really watched her diet.
	Not really.
	That's probably why she died because she didn't.
	Okay, so back on the metal rod.
	That was just a bit of a tangent.
	But as these things pop into my mind, I have to present them because I'll forget if I don't.
	Right, right.
	You ram this body through a single hole above the belly button and you're sucking all the juice out of these organs.
	And once you know you're done with that, because there's not really anything coming out being sucked out by this electric pump, then you know it's time to proceed with the filler.
	What's the cavity filler?
	Okay, so explain this.
	Why are you doing this and what does it do?
	Well, okay, you know, the reason for it is you basically just went in there and tore up all those organs, you know, by puncturing them and everything.
	So you need to go in there and put this cavity filler in, and then that gets hard inside of like the torso.
	Now, this cavity filler, would it get hard if you just exposed it to air for a while?
	Or does it require contact with bodily fluids?
	Hmm.
	I really don't know.
	You know what?
	There's the door.
	I have already admonished you.
	Well, you know, we never just did experiments with the weird little things that I would have to find out if I were down there.
	I'd be like just abandoning dead bodies, neglecting them because I'm downstairs doing experiments on juices and tubes of stuff.
	Juices and tubes.
	Okay, so you pump this filler into the body because you've essentially turned the internal organs into ground beef.
	Right, right.
	And then after that.
	So the fact that those internal organs have lost their original shape, it causes the exterior of the body to be misshapen.
	Well, a little bit.
	Because you've still got to think.
	You've still got your chest bone and the chest plate and everything.
	But it's more of just going in there and doing that with that metal rod that you need to get something in there that is going to get hard and it like sets.
	What's the purpose of it, though?
	I mean, if the body is.
	I mean, I understand the purpose of the rod and sucking all the blood out of there, but what's the purpose of the filler?
	I mean, is it going to prevent leakage?
	Is that all?
	Well, yeah, and it's also, I don't want to say it's like a form of embalming fluid, but it's it also helps to preserve.
	You know, I'm kind of wondering if this filler that you're describing, it's kind of funny because this subject came up on a previous Gabcast recently.
	This dead bodies exhibit, I think it's just simply called bodies, maybe, where they have these bodies that are injected with a fluid that effectively turns tissue into rubber.
	This fluid infuses itself with all of the cells of the tissue and they literally become rubberized and forever preserved exactly as they are.
	It's probably one of the most faithful forms of tissue preservation that I could imagine existing.
	I mean, these bodies look remarkably preserved.
	And do you suspect that this filler that you're injecting is in some way similar to that, or do you think this is an entirely different process?
	Well, it might be a form of it.
	You know, it might kind of do the same thing, but I don't know.
	I would almost have to see that exhibit or whatever.
	I'm surprised you haven't.
	And it was also, by the way, revealed that at least this is what came up when we were talking about that exhibit recently on the Gabcast, that the bodies that they have procured for this exhibit tend to be coming from third-world shithole countries in Asia where you can't drink the water.
	Almost as though they're getting bodies that were abandoned that didn't have any family.
	They all, like, a disproportionate number of the bodies are Asian, of Asian extraction.
	Oh, wow.
	That makes it a little creepier to me.
	You know, if you knew that the bodies just simply were people who, in their final days, decided, hey, it would be really cool for my body to be a part of something like that.
	Yeah, to be donated to.
	Yes, and so you sign up to be a part of that.
	Some bodies get chosen, some don't.
	Again, I'm sure it's all based on penis size.
	You would imagine entirely.
	I like to think so.
	If this were a fair, orderly universe, that's how the decision would be made.
	I mean, if I was in charge of it, definitely that's how I would be picking and choosing right there.
	But that's what you assume to be the case as you're looking at this exhibit, and it turns out it's not the case.
	It's bodies that were almost like back in the early days of medical research when physiology students or professors were paying people to do things under the table to provide them with bodies so that they could, you know, it's almost like the bodies were acquired through really sketchy processes like this.
	Right.
	Anyway, so this filler keeps the body from leaking.
	Yeah.
	It has a preservative effect.
	Right.
	But it's not really about maintaining the shape of the torso or anything like that.
	Not really.
	You're not doing anything to the legs at this point, are you?
	No.
	Are you your metal rod?
	Are you like, you know, you've got it positioned such that you're puncturing the heart and the kidneys and all of these organs throughout the torso?
	Do you ever flip it around and point it down and you've got to smash up the balls and everything else?
	It's got to go down.
	You know, we can't have just a loose set of balls hanging there.
	We have to do something about it.
	And then we will inject filler.
	But don't worry, we'll make you look really great.
	The way we fill them.
	No, I don't think I've ever punctured a ball sack.
	Well, I'm glad we got to that.
	I was really a little curious about that aspect of the process.
	So after this is done, how do you know you're done injecting filler?
	It's just one bottle, and as soon as the bottle's done.
	What is the consistency of the liquid?
	Is it like it's like a.
	Is it thick?
	No.
	Really, I would have expected it to be.
	It's a little bit thicker than water, but it's not.
	But it's not like toothpaste or something like that.
	No, it's not like syrup or anything like that.
	Yeah.
	How do you know you're done injecting?
	Sometimes it takes one bottle, sometimes it takes two bottles, just depending on how big the person is.
	But as soon as the bottle's done, and it's like a gravity, you hold the bottle up, and you're just kind of going in.
	So that filler is being fed in through the holes at the end of the same rod that you were sucking all the blood out with.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And then what's next?
	You're going to get the body dressed.
	Right.
	And see, after that, we kind of just, you know, they're at an angle on that table.
	They're at a slant.
	And so gravity's kind of doing its work there too with the embalming fluid and getting down into the, you know, like the lower limbs, like the feet and stuff.
	And we just, we kind of just let them sit for a little bit, you know, and just kind of let, after we're done, we kind of just let them, let gravity take its course and handle that.
	And then the next step would be to go ahead and get them dressed.
	And you know, it is so hard at times.
	Like when you're dressing a kid and they're misbehaving and they don't want to succumb to your demands, they'll just go limp.
	Yeah.
	And they can be really hard to dress.
	And so, I would think a dead guy is even harder to dress than a pissed-off three-year-old.
	It's definitely, it does take some practice, really.
	Because does it have to be a two-man job?
	No.
	Dressing a dead guy?
	No.
	It helps to have another guy because it just goes faster getting it done.
	But, I mean, you know, you can do it with just one guy because, you know, you just put the underwear on and then you put an under shirt on.
	Are they regular underwear?
	Are they like Haynes?
	Actually.
	Actually, yeah.
	I think so.
	And it's.
	Why?
	I don't know why Haynes decided to get it.
	But why underwear?
	Well, just.
	Just because?
	That's what people wear.
	People wear underwear.
	Put some underwear on that man.
	Is that all it really comes down to?
	Yeah, pretty much.
	I mean, I don't envision anyone at the visitation unzipping the fly.
	No underwear, really?
	Are you really saving money in every area you possibly can?
	What kind of funeral is this?
	But, yeah.
	But, you know, the underwear, the under shirt, and then, you know, the family will, or the person before they died will, you know, here, I want to be dressed in this.
	And, like, with a man, usually it's, you know, a suit and tie and, you know, slacks.
	And some people like to be buried with shoes on and some people don't.
	Some people prefer not to have shoes on.
	I don't know.
	Some people prefer to have extra socks because, well, it's one of those things sometimes people just.
	How do I want to say this?
	It's like they want to make themselves as comfortable as possible.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Okay, you think your extra pair of socks is going to overcome the fact that you were just speared a few moments earlier?
	My God.
	Right.
	And it's just one of those things where, you know, everyone has their own thing that they want to do.
	Some people like to have things in their casket, you know.
	Of course, family pictures.
	What's the strangest thing you recall being placed in a casket?
	Drugs.
	Prescription?
	No.
	Illicit street drugs?
	Yeah.
	And that was allowed?
	No.
	Oh, my.
	They walked up and did it right in front of us, expecting us to land.
	What was it?
	No, it was cocaine.
	What?
	Yeah, it was a baggie of cocaine.
	And they thought that a legitimate business would be okay with just having a bag of Coke in the chapel.
	Right.
	And what they didn't understand here, there were police officers that came to this funeral.
	my god and it was like what was it about the dead guy that led these people to think that that would be seen as okay He was kind of life did he lead?
	It was a rough one.
	You know, ran hard and did that kind of stuff.
	And, you know, some people, one thing people do, they like to put beer cans in there, full beers, like a Budweiser can in there.
	And it's like, okay, whatever.
	But whenever you're walking up and putting a baggie of cocaine in there, that's okay.
	Sounds like a good time to me.
	I usually don't think of funerals as a good time, but you should have called me up.
	I would have shown to this one.
	Well, we confiscated it and had a fun afternoon.
	I think more like a fun couple of days.
	Yeah, well, you know, and it was one of those things where they just thought they could just do that and did it right in front of us.
	Like, well.
	They think you're just going to say, well, he's dead.
	It's his dying wish.
	Like, no, we saw you do that.
	You can't.
	You'd think they would at least try to conceal it.
	Mm-hmm.
	You would think, but that's odd.
	You know, and that's probably, I mean, there hasn't, I haven't ever seen anyone put a dildo or anything in a casket or anything like that.
	But yeah.
	So we've pretty much described the entire body preparation process, haven't we?
	Well, after the dressing, that's when the makeup comes.
	And, you know, some people, more so, like, women, they'll have their actual beautician come in or hairdresser and have them do their hair like they normally would whenever they were still alive.
	I would think that it's unusual that a hairdresser is willing to do that.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean.
	Is it unusual?
	No, it happens quite often.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	Because I just think a lot of regular people would be a little icky about cutting a dead body's hair.
	It's not your client any longer.
	It's a slab of dead meat.
	Yeah.
	Creepy.
	You know, actually, that might explain some of the videos I've seen on YouTube where they have these makeup artists come in to work on a body, and they trick the makeup artist into thinking it's a dead body when, of course, it's a dead body.
	it's actually somebody who's alive and is going to jump up and scare the crap out of this person.
	So I guess people who are doing makeup work and hair work, it's routine within the business that these people are not exclusive to the death business.
	In many cases, these are just regular hair or makeup people.
	Right, right.
	Regular beauticians that just happen to be working on a dead body.
	So I guess that explains that video.
	Was just wondering why because you'll see these videos on YouTube, and some of these people coming in to do the job look really creeped out even before they are freaked out by the fact that the body is waking up, and I guess that explains that.
	They're just, in a lot of cases, regular people, right?
	So the makeup work is done, and that's it, right?
	Yeah, and the makeup, that could take a while, you know.
	Well, with us, anyways, you know, doing it by hand and everything like that.
	And then after the makeup, and then, you know, if it's a man, you know, you just kind of try to fix their hair like in a picture that the family gave you or something.
	So after that, then they're ready for layout.
	And then there's still some touch-ups that you need to do, like with the casket, like lowering it, and, you know, depending on how big the size of the person, you know, and stuff like that.
	You mean like lowering it in the display in the chapel.
	Right, right.
	Like the actual casket itself.
	It's not at the same height for every presentation?
	No.
	Why?
	Well, just, you know, some people are thicker than other people, and the actual, if you crank the casket, you can lower, like, I don't want to say mattress, but you know what they're laying on in there.
	You can raise that or lower that.
	Oh, really?
	So there's a crank on the actual casket.
	Right.
	There's.
	I wonder how much that adds to the price of a casket.
	That's something I don't want to get into.
	Some dollar signs pop up in your eyes.
	Ching.
	But no, it's.
	No, every casket's like that, though.
	Everyone has a crank that you can raise and lower.
	Okay, so the process, the preparation process that we just described was with a body on which the embalming process goes exactly as it should.
	Right.
	Let's say you got a body that's been dead a little too long.
	Going back to that embalming process, what is it that you encounter?
	So, okay, let's say it was someone that was dead for like four days.
	Like, are you asking how we would handle it from.
	What kind of problems do you run into?
	Oh, you know, you can still embalm a body even though they've been dead for a while.
	But I never saw the point in that.
	You know, they're already decaying.
	There's not much to really preserve at this point.
	You know, the family's not going to want to see them like that.
	And depending on how they died, like if they died in a like if they drowned and no one found them for a while, they're going to be bloated.
	You know, they're going to be a lot of times.
	There's no way to fix that.
	You can, but.
	What would you do?
	I mean, you can.
	It just, it really varies because, like, let's say they did drown and they sat in the water for, you know, five days.
	They're going to be bloated.
	They're probably going to be green.
	They're going to be just.
	I guess it's kind of.
	You could still embalm them, but there's really, as far as I always understood, there's really no point to, you know?
	Like, here we could just do a closed casket or we could just cremate them, you know.
	So, and the family, sometimes they do want to see them still, which.
	That's odd.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But.
	I mean, there would be certain circumstances in which I would just not want to see that dead person.
	I mean, I don't want my last memory.
	Right.
	You know, it's always been my policy that I don't go to visitations and I don't go view the body of somebody who's died that I loved or cared about.
	For some reason, when my grandmother died, I went to the visitation and I really regret having done that.
	Yeah, I really regret it because now my last memory, my last moment of seeing her in the flesh in front of me, she just looked so awful.
	It's not a good memory.
	Right, right.
	And I don't.
	It's not the way you want your last image of them to be.
	Right.
	So I'm going to stick with that policy going forward.
	Right, right.
	And a lot of people think, well, you wouldn't go to if your wife died, you wouldn't go.
	No, I don't want to see my wife laid out dead, you know.
	Right.
	Or one of my kids.
	I don't want to see that.
	You know, I totally understand that.
	You know, a lot of people, they really, people get offended by that.
	Like, you wouldn't go to that?
	No, I totally understand that because, you know, yes, let's say, you know, it was your wife or whatever, but you don't want that last image of that.
	You don't want to realize that they're not there.
	Like, I would totally get that you wouldn't want to go to that.
	You know what I mean?
	What's the worst condition you've seen a body in where the family just insisted on an open presentation?
	I mean, I guess it's hard to say this is the worst.
	We rate it on a scale.
	I mean, there's no way to really that caused you to say, man, I can't really believe they're doing an open casket for this.
	Well, you know, sometimes you just cannot do an open casket.
	You know, if someone shot themselves and their head is gone, you know, you don't really want to do an open casket for that.
	Has anybody ever pressed the issue?
	Oh, yeah.
	And it's like, I mean, this is going to be a big service.
	We don't want to be freaking.
	What do you say?
	I mean, like, verbatim, as you're talking to that family member who's trying to convince you that it should be an open casket when Uncle Vern has blasted half of his face off.
	You know, it's like, and whenever I say push it, it's not like they were just, no, it's going to be open casket.
	It's going to be open.
	It wasn't like that.
	It was just, are you sure it shouldn't be open casket?
	You know, and then this is before we've even shown before they've even seen their family member in this kind of situation.
	But most of the time, after they actually see them, and we always warn them, you know, this isn't going to be pretty.
	This is going to be, you know, it's going to be difficult to look at.
	And most of the time they get it.
	You know, they don't want other people too to see their brother or uncle or whoever like this.
	So we'll go ahead and close casket on this one.
	You know.
	I mean, some people, they don't really push it.
	I mean, after they see it, they get a pretty good understanding on, yeah, you're right.
	We probably shouldn't have an open casket with this.
	So the body that's been dead a long time, which causes complications in the embalming process, what are those complications?
	Like someone that's been dead for a while.
	Someone has just been dead too long for the embalming to go well.
	What is it that doesn't go well?
	Well, see, like, the decomposition process has already been going.
	And if they've been dead for a while, depending on where they died at and stuff, you might have the maggots already going and, you know, the flies and just the bacteria that goes along with all of that on top of the smell.
	And it's just Most of the, I would say probably 99% of the time, it's always, we'll just go ahead and cremate them.
	Yeah, but I mean, that's because you don't see a point in embalming.
	But I'm saying, should you proceed with the embalming, aren't you going to run into some complications?
	Oh, yeah.
	And what are they?
	Well, you know, whenever, man, it just really depends because there's no, everything is different about it.
	Because if they were dead out in a field for two weeks out in the hot sun, odds are they're going to have holes in them from where flies had been eating them.
	You know what I mean?
	So the embalming fluid's not going to traverse.
	just really wouldn't do much at that point you know but is it gonna like leak out of their body as you're trying to yeah like it would just on top of It's like you're embalming a sponge.
	Yeah, and then on top of having to clean out all of that, you know, all the insects or whatever.
	I mean, that's pretty rare.
	That's pretty rare.
	And that's really hard to really give you a good answer on because that really doesn't happen that often that they get that far gone and they still want to be embalmed.
	See, I would think that the blood gets really chunky inside the body and starts to kind of coagulate.
	And that that would prevent the flow of the embalming through an embalming fluid.
	Am I wrong about that?
	Yeah, it doesn't really coagulate.
	It's, I mean, there's been times when they have been dead for a while and we will pick them up and then they just leak blood out of, you know, like the blood is still blood.
	Okay.
	Well, that was certainly interesting.
	And you know something I've mentioned this to other people, but, you know, as you have made your way in your career and you've become more and more accustomed to being surrounded by death, you've become a little bit desensitized to it all.
	It's gotten things have gotten to a point where you're not phased by much, but I know in the time I've known you that you are entirely open to the idea of paranormal activity in places where death frequents.
	Oh, yeah, definitely.
	I definitely think that paranormal activity, that really does.
	Just being in this business, it just seems I have a totally different outlook than I think that just the average person would have.
	You know what I mean?
	What is your...
	Well, I will recount one of the, I guess you could say, paranormal experiences I had sleeping in the funeral home.
	Mm-hmm.
	It was in that room with all the little decorations all over the walls.
	And you told me at about 3 in the morning or so, you're going to start hearing a lot of chaos.
	Yeah, you're going to hear some noises.
	You're going to hear...
	and it's gonna sound odd and i did not sleep all night that night because i just all i could do is lie there and await this onslaught of activity that you had warned me was coming And sure enough, around 3.30 in the morning, I start hearing footsteps.
	I start hearing just things clanking.
	Just odd noises that should not be occurring.
	And did you hear that noise?
	And this was a frequent one, frequent one.
	It sounded like someone would stop their foot really loud.
	Do you remember that?
	I don't remember that.
	I just remember walking.
	Just subtle walking.
	And you know that no one is out there.
	Right.
	I know everybody's asleep.
	Right.
	And no one would have any business at that time be down where we were, anyways.
	It would be hilarious if you were just up making popcorn and never told me.
	You just left me to think all these crazy things.
	But that's not the only.
	I mean, you and I did on one occasion attempt to record EVPs, but it was not really.
	It wasn't really any sort of a concerted effort.
	We just sat in the chapel and talked for about an hour to one another and recorded audio as we were doing that.
	And I went back and reviewed all of that audio closely with headphones.
	Didn't hear a thing.
	And I find that so odd that I've recorded probably I've gone on EVP hunts probably 10 to 15 different times at different places.
	And of all of those hunts, I would say that I've accrued a total of maybe six to eight EVPs that I would present to somebody and say, check this out.
	This is pretty amazing.
	You actually had something.
	Yeah.
	And I just find it amazing that we sat in this chapel in this functioning funeral home that is just infused with and surrounded by death.
	Yeah.
	Fresh death.
	And the emotions of families of the departed, just all of that.
	You can kind of feel that heaviness when you walk into this place.
	And I just find it odd that I can go to a funeral home, sit in the chapel and record audio like this for about an hour and get no anomalies, but probably 50% of the time that I go to a cemetery, I'm going to come home and find something.
	With something.
	I found that really odd.
	Yeah, especially after, you know, hearing all that noise and stuff, you would have thought you would have picked up just the tiniest bit of something.
	Maybe we just didn't do it enough, you know.
	Maybe we should have tried it several more times.
	And maybe we weren't inviting enough because, you know, when people really work at getting EVPs, they ask questions.
	They make it unambiguously apparent that they are trying to communicate with beings or entities or whatever.
	Yeah.
	And we didn't really do that.
	We were just talking about tits and asses and stuff.
	Tits.
	boobies and butts i found that really odd um but But you have had a lot of paranormal experiences in that funeral home over the years.
	And one of the most, I don't even know if, do you want to talk about the man who walked in to the office?
	I'm kidding.
	Okay, golly.
	The tea, stop drinking it.
	Oh, yeah.
	This teacher is really.
	No, I just meant like it's mine.
	You're not allowed any from this point forward.
	My bad.
	I didn't like your answer there.
	You'll be punished with no tea for 20 minutes.
	Damn it.
	Well, first off, you know, being what that place is being a funeral home and how many bodies that will come through there, I feel that a lot of them decide to hang around for whatever reason.
	They, you know, they never left.
	And, you know, that was what you were talking about with the man that walked.
	He walked by the office at the funeral home.
	Which is just a room right there in the middle of the funeral home.
	Right.
	And he walked down the hallway past the office?
	Yeah.
	Did he stop at the office door?
	He stopped at the office door.
	What did he look like?
	Gray shirt, blue jeans, shorter black hair.
	How old?
	30s, probably.
	You saw him?
	I didn't see him.
	This was your co-worker.
	Right.
	And we were up for there was a bad car accident, and this was late, like, you know, I'm talking like 1-2 in the morning.
	And the family was going to come in, you know, to get everything started with all that.
	So we were up, and from what I understand from what he said was he looked up, and this guy was standing there, and he thought, you know, okay, the family's here.
	And the guy just kept walking.
	He stopped for a second, looked at him, you know, and he just kind of walked in to the chapel area.
	And whenever he followed him out there, and whenever your co-worker followed this man.
	Right, whenever he fought.
	Yeah, right.
	And he went out there to find him to see, you know, because he just continued to walk and there was nobody there whenever he walked out there.
	Didn't you tell me that you guys had a file that contained a picture of a dead body?
	Yeah.
	And you think that was him?
	I think so, yeah.
	That was a.
	Your co-worker who actually saw this supposed apparition.
	Yeah, said it looked quite a bit like this guy.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	They never knew that guy's name.
	They never.
	He was never identified.
	The body in the file?
	Right.
	Right, who we think the apparition was.
	He was never identified, and he...
	And this file goes back to when?
	Wasn't it like the 30s?
	Yeah, I think that was 33.
	And he, if I remember correctly, he had committed suicide and no one knew who he was.
	And I don't know if maybe he just decided to stick around because no one, you know, never had a name.
	It was just an unidentified man.
	I remember you telling me something else about this room with all the little decorations.
	I guess they could be called Hummels.
	Is that what they were?
	Is that what they are?
	I'm trying to think.
	Which room are you talking about?
	The room that I slept in.
	There was like a decoration in there of some kind with a picture of a woman on it.
	And one of your co-workers said they saw the same woman in that picture walking around.
	Right.
	Tell me what happened.
	Okay.
	This was a woman that we had buried a few years before that, I guess.
	And in this picture, it was.
	I'm trying to think exactly.
	You slept in that room with, I know what picture you're talking about.
	I'm just trying to think of how I'm going to describe this.
	Well, anyways, there's this picture of this woman, and it's on a decoration of some kind.
	Right, that was kind of like donated by the family.
	Right.
	And from what I and see, I never actually saw it either, but from what I understood, my coworker also was like, I could have swore that that woman just walked past, you know, just walked through here.
	And it looked just like that picture.
	I was like, oh, really?
	It's just another thing where I'm not.
	I'm not too surprised.
	It's not shocking to me that, oh, well, maybe she is here, you know?
	And by the way, your co-worker, I know him.
	Well, I'm acquainted with him.
	Right.
	He is not a bullshitter.
	No, he's the real deal.
	He's serious business.
	Yeah.
	And so for him to say that, you know, he's not.
	He's not like some TV ghost hunting psychic that's, I'm feeling something right now.
	Right.
	You know, just always making a scene.
	I mean, I would actually expect him, even if he did see something, to keep quiet about it.
	Right.
	And that's what I was just getting ready to say.
	It's like, it was enough for him to actually say something about it, you know?
	So I totally, I totally believe him, you know, when it comes to that.
	It was enough for him to actually need to tell someone about it.
	I mean, you've lived in this funeral home all your life.
	I mean, there's got to be, there have to be other experiences.
	I think these are the only things I ever recall really talking with you about.
	Does anything else come to mind experience-wise, paranormal-wise?
	Wasn't there somebody that your friend was in the chapel one night and he heard somebody knock on the door outside?
	Or something happened that gave him the impression there was somebody else in the building and he went running around looking for this person and there turned out not to be anybody in the building and he thought he would find them in the chapel.
	I remember you telling me something about that.
	Well, I do remember there was this time when it was one of the other guys that works there was moving stuff around like in a casket room and stuff and he heard just this a man a grown man screaming.
	Like how?
	Like screaming like talking or like in pain.
	It sounded like he was in pain from what I thought.
	Oh boy.
	That's great.
	And he said it sounded like it came through the wall.
	And so he what's on the other side of the wall that he heard that through.
	Well, see, that was like the original part of that funeral home.
	So, and that was in the basement.
	So it's just, there's nothing on the other side of that wall.
	If that makes sense.
	Is it dirt?
	Yeah, dirt.
	Like it's in the ground.
	This funeral home goes back, didn't you say to what, the 1830s?
	1890s.
	Oh, okay.
	Still, that's old as shit.
	Yeah, still.
	There's been so much death in this place.
	So much emotion spent in this place.
	You just really feel it as you walk through the doors.
	It's quite something.
	Okay, well, you know, we have now gone two hours.
	Really?
	That's not counting the break we took.
	Wow.
	That went fast, didn't it?
	Yes, it did.
	That means things went well, I think.
	You know, there are probably...
	Oh, by the way, while we were taking our break, you got a call from your co-worker talking about that dye.
	You were saying that if you put too much dye in the body as you're trying to recolorize the skin, get the tone the way it needs to be, if you put too much in the body, that the body will actually glow.
	And your co-worker called while we were on our break and said, no, the body was actually emitting light, and you could see it when you would turn the light off.
	Right, it was very dim.
	But he said it was.
	So it really is a glow.
	I mean, good God, what's in that chemical?
	Well, see, they don't make it anymore, so it makes you wonder if it was a mess up.
	It may have had some kind of a radioactive quality to it.
	Well, it makes you wonder because, and yeah, he shouldn't have used the whole bottle whenever it was.
	He used the whole bottle, this guy?
	He dumped the whole bottle into this embalmed.
	And you're only supposed to use what, a a teaspoon?
	Yeah, a few teaspoons.
	My God.
	What happened between this guy and the family?
	Oh, I don't know.
	I'm pretty sure that guy didn't have a job after that, though.
	Because that is a big mess up.
	Because then after that.
	That's almost like, you know what?
	I accidentally cut your granny's head off during the embalming process.
	That's pretty much as bad.
	Well, right.
	It really is.
	And so the body would just be extremely red.
	Yeah, and it was a deep dark red?
	It was scarlet red, is what it was called.
	And it was not made anymore.
	It hasn't been made by this company for like probably 10 years now.
	But see, that just causes a big problem with because now the makeup guy has a lot to do.
	I don't know that you're going to cover that up.
	And he couldn't.
	No.
	So it makes me wonder if maybe that family got all that for free.
	Like, we really apologize.
	You know, like, because that is a big mess up.
	Yeah.
	That is, that is some stuff that should not happen at all.
	Why this guy decided to use a whole bottle in this, I have no idea, but he should have known better than that.
	And if he didn't, then he shouldn't be doing this.
	You know.
	You know, I think a lot of people have the impression that the mortuary industry is just rolling in cash and that it's just like money is being sucked off of trees with a big giant vacuum cleaner.
	And I don't get the impression that that's really the case.
	I think there are a lot of variables that can make it difficult to run that sort of business that the average person has no idea of.
	Right.
	I mean, I mean, don't get me wrong.
	It's good money, definitely.
	But also, there are a lot of expenses that go along with this, you know, like just the upkeep on all the equipment.
	You know, you have to buy the embalming fluid.
	You have to keep maintenance on the hearse.
	Funeral homes normally are big.
	You know, they're big places.
	So the electric, all the utilities.
	Property taxes.
	Everything.
	You know, it's just, it really adds up after a while.
	And there's so many expenses that actually go into it.
	And I think the key is just to run a funeral home on a back patio somewhere.
	I mean, you're really going to cut the square footage down, the property taxes.
	It's going to be great.
	You just want to minimize where possible.
	But, yeah, I mean, it really does add up after a while, you know.
	Yeah.
	And also, I recall you telling me that there's more of a trend in the industry toward cremations, which are far less profitable in the industry than traditional funerals, right?
	Say that again.
	Are cremations.
	I recall you saying that cremations are up in number.
	They're becoming more common.
	And the cremations are a lot less profitable.
	Right.
	Like, you know, cremations are a lot cheaper to do.
	And a lot of people have really been going over to that now.
	And, you know, because if you get a full service, and, you know, every funeral home, their prices are different anyways, but average, you know, we'll say for a full service.
	Now, full service is a visitation the night before, funeral the next day, and then a burial.
	You know, and there's other variables that can go into that too, you know, like maybe taking them over to the church and doing stuff like that, depending on what, you know, faith it is.
	And every one of these little extra things have a specific price associated with them.
	Right.
	And So, you know, let's just say it was just the standard full service.
	We're talking $9,000, $10,000 probably on average.
	You know, and every funeral home is different.
	And cremations now, though, the price is significantly cheaper.
	And once again, every funeral home is different.
	Well, every crematory is different because there's some people that just opened up a crematory without a funeral home.
	They just have their own crematory.
	And they depend on funeral homes contracting with them.
	Right, exactly.
	So the funeral home still makes money off of that, too.
	And what that comes down to is, like, let's say, on average, two grand for a cremation.
	And that is just direct cremation where they go get cremated and there's no service.
	There's nothing.
	You just get the ashes back and then you can do whatever with them.
	You can spread them somewhere or.
	In that case, you're just paying $2,000 for the use of an oven.
	Right.
	Pretty much.
	Right.
	And like with the mortuary or with the funeral home taking them, transporting and doing all that.
	And then the crematory and the funeral home will, it's almost like commission almost.
	You know, like they'll make money off of it.
	We make money off of it.
	You know, and it's one of those kind of deals.
	But it seems here lately, a lot of people are going with a cremation and a memorial service.
	So you could have them cremated and then you could have a memorial service wherever you wanted, but a lot of people choose to do it at a funeral home.
	And that is a that cuts the price in half, you know, with instead of paying for the whole full service and everything.
	So a lot of people are really going over to the cremation side of it now just because of the price.
	And it's just more convenient, really.
	So it's just a finder's fee for the funeral home, effectively.
	Because the funeral home, the crematory cannot legally receive the body upon death, right?
	A funeral home has to do that.
	Is that correct?
	Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure.
	So that's why the funeral home's getting the cut.
	Right.
	Because then the funeral home has their partners that they have agreed to.
	Yeah, calls the crematory, like, hey, we're going to bring you one.
	And then, yeah.
	Huh.
	Okay.
	Yeah, there was something else I was going to ask, but my God, we've gone for quite a stretch here.
	Yep, we'll have to do this again.
	Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's other stuff we could get into.
	We didn't get any callers, but I suspect that that's in part because it was really an interesting conversation, and it's just fine to sit back and listen.
	I mean, we really covered a lot of stuff as well.
	I mean, I'm sure there were things we didn't cover that questions could have been asked about.
	Oh, yeah.
	I'm quite satisfied with what happened.
	Oh, I'm very satisfied.
	Okay, well, that's the gab cast for tonight.
	We appreciate all of you who've tuned in.
	I should have chosen some spookier outro music.
	Well, this works.
	But anyway, I'm MV from Bell Gab.
	Thanks to Matthew for being here, and thanks to all of you for listening.
	It was really a pleasure.
	And we may do this again sometime.
	There's other stuff we can get to.
	Maybe just stories you could tell about the business.
	That'll be great.
	Anyway, have a good night, everybody.
	Thanks for listening.
	Thanks to everybody for downloading the show.
	And we'll see you next time.

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