Sharon's back, got an iPhone and Hannelore's body was swapped out at the cemetery

 

In last night's episode, Sharon was back and about to start school for the fall. It was a stressful time, getting her ready for this new experience. We were at a different part of her disabled journey, the part where she was just learning some of her limitations. Of course, I was blessed with 20/20 hindsight from my real life experience with her. Surprisingly, this didn't make me fatalistic or futilistic about it, but rather helpful. I was glad to be given another chance to be patient and caring. 

I had an iPhone, which indicated to me that I had been down the timeline a bit, since in real life I never had one while she was alive. I was there, trying to get her car winterized and teach her the basics of Iphone use. She was having a bit of a time with the text being too small, as I knew she would. I tried to show her the pinch zoom feature, but she wasn't finding it all that easy to navigate the tiny menus. 

Meanwhile, we were at a memorial for her mom, who had passed away recently. It was more of an afterthought, since they literally had to dig up the casket for us to view. I didn't realize at the time, but it was the wrong casket. Hannelore was buried in a plain pine box, per her instructions. This was one of those fancy mahogany jobs. 

The casket was being displayed on a wall with the lid facing out. I thought, what was the purpose of a viewing if all you could see was a casket, so I endeavored to open the lid, only partly concerned that the body might come tumbling out. I managed to get the lid open, and fortunately, the body was secured with a cloth and some velcro, to prevent just such an occurrence. 

What wasn't planned for was what to do in the event that they had mistakenly brought up the wrong body. Instead of Hannelore's corpse, there were the preserved remains of a Hispanic woman in her thirties. 

I mentioned this to the funeral director, Jeffery Duncan Jones, the actor who played principal Ed Rooney in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He was just as much of a muck up in this affair as he was in the movie as he back pedaled and tried to explain that this had never, ever happened in the entire history of funerals. I found that hard to believe and told him so. 

We were in a tough predicament since he was also our landlord, and we were in a situation reminiscent of my time at 180-1/2 E 8th Ave in Chico. The dual role of landlord/funeral director also meant that he was actually Eric Hart, my landlord at the time, only being played by, you know, Ed Rooney. 

We were still trying to get straightened out just how he was going to make up this giant fiasco to us, but I think it was going to come down to getting some money taken off of our rent bill. We were still negotiating when I woke up. 

It was nice to be working with Sharon again, very natural, and I almost forgot the whole notion of her being dead. But something about the theme of the dream reminded me, and I remembered to be extra nice and careful in how I dealt with her.