Casket Warranty

          My mother told me something that puzzles me a little. When she bought my Dad’s casket, it came with a warranty. A lifetime warranty. So I’m wondering, whose lifetime? Obviously Dad is already gone. Is it Mom’s lifetime? That’s an easy game for manufacturers. Selling lifetime warranties to seventy-year-old women. I checked into it and found some caskets are warranted for 80, 90, even 200 years. They advertise a “fully insured warranty”, whatever that is. There is a “locking mechanism”, a system to seal the bottom, and we are promised an “exterior cathodically protected against rust and corrosion.” And there is a sealing system to keep the elements out.

            Now this is really bothering me. Why do we need to lock it down so tight? If the person is trying to get out, we probably should let them out, right? I can see why having the bottom fall out during the carrying of it could be a bad thing. The strong bottom sounds reasonable. Now, here’s the other thing that has me wondering. Are we supposed to be checking them? Of all my relatives who have died, I don’t remember once going to check the casket to see if the warranty was good. How do we know if the seal has held? How do we know if the locking mechanism held? How do we know if there is rust and corrosion? We can’t make good on the warranty if we don’t know it failed, can we? 

            As a young child, I remember going to the cemetery to place flowers on the graves. “Oh look, someone put flags on the graves,” my aunt would say. “Alf is doing a good job of keeping the grass cut and the weeds away from the stone,” my mother would say as she pulled the errant weed. Not once did I ever hear them say, “It’s time to check the casket for rust and corrosion.”