Buried With Status and Respect

  "A lot can be learned about someone's role in society by the things they're buried with. The presence of  precious objects suggests that the deceased held a high social status.”

Stan, Woody and I attended the viewing of a recently deceased mutual friend.

We stood silent, somberly gazing at the face of one who had once laughed with us.

Woody, who had perhaps of the  three of us been closest to the departed took out his billfold and removed a hundred dollar bill. He gently placed it in the coffin, and made some appropriate remark to indicate that he was showing respect, and the  deep degree of his feeling.

I was moved and felt compelled to follow suit. Placing two fifties next to Woody's hundred, I stepped back, and turned to look at Stan.  He had his checkbook out, writing in it. I could see that it was a check for three hundred dollars.

He placed it in the coffin and picked up the three bills from me and Woody.

Straightening up, he said “Three hundred in, dragging two … Pot's square.”