Seething At Burial Fees, Abraham Buys Own Cemetery For Sarah

“‘Paperwork’ fees? Paper won’t be invented for two thousand years. What a racket.”

Hebron, November 23 – The patriarch Abraham decided to buy his own burial ground to bury his late wife after encountering exorbitant prices to inter her in an existing cemetery, the widower told reporters today.

Sarah passed away this week at the age of 127, prompting her husband to seek a suitable plot to bury her. He soon discovered, to his chagrin, that the local undertakers and cemetery owners charge significant sums to handle even the most basic functions, and he wanted to spare his descendants from being gouged by such exploitative businesses. Abraham spent a premium – four hundred silver shekels – to purchase the Machpelah Cave, but expects to recoup the savings by allowing himself and his descendants to handle the preparation and burial tasks themselves, and not be forced to hire others to perform those functions.

“I’d have to spend money on a burial plot anyway, and it’s going to be even more expensive because I want a spot reserved for me next to her,” explained the 137-year-old. “But beyond any costs to obtain the gravesite itself, the funeral parlor people add their own charges, and those add up. It would be one thing if those prices were reasonable, but I don’t need to be paying extra money for stupid processing fees and services I didn’t ask for.”

“What the hell is a ‘storage fee’?” he asked. “I’m not stowing Sarah away for later. All I needed was a place that would prepare her body for burial, and they insisted on offering every kind of embalming, mummification, and nauseating procedures to prepare for an open-casket funeral. Good Lord – I’ve honored my wife for a hundred years and I’m not about to subject her body to such frightful indignity. I’ll spare you the details.”

“And who needs a funeral home to charge for ‘liaison services’ with the cemetery?” he continued. “What kind of contrived arrangement is that? I swear there’s collusion going on here to gouge bereaved customers. And ‘paperwork’ fees? Paper won’t be invented for two thousand years. What a racket.”

“Don’t get me started on flowers, musicians, and who knows what other useless bling,” he went on, his irritation rising. “I want to bury my wife and praise her in a eulogy, not throw a ticker-tape parade. What a colossal waste. You want to honor her? Do something kind in her memory. Make the world a better place. Don’t try to suck every possible shekel out of grieving people. Goddamn vipers.”

A courier interrupted Abraham mid-rant, handing him a scroll from the local artisans’ guild informing him of all the elaborate headstone options available.

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