Tips For Buying Your Own Tombstone, You Morose S.O.B.

We’re often told that responsible people buy life insurance. But what happens to all that money? Is it supposed to go to your ungrateful family (especially your insufferable kids)? Why waste it all on those jerks who once called you “negligent at best” when you could invest some or most of it into buying your own tombstone? You’ll make sure it’s the right one, and if you want it to say, “FU family! I went first LOL!” it can. But how do you go about buying one? We’re here to help.

1. Pick Your Terms

The first and most important thing to remember is that they’re not generally called tombstones anymore. This could be because, like everything in the death industry (such as referring to corpses as “loved ones”), euphemisms are preferred. Or, more likely, it’s the fact that a frozen pizza company and a Val Kilmer western have hijacked the word to a point where Google is completely gamed. Well, and metalwork tooling.

So when you begin your search try “headstone.” Or “grave marker.”  eBay has numerous options, often with custom engraving, and in at least one case, a custom QR code.

2. Secondhand Stones: Good for Your Wallet, Bad for Your Eternal Damnation?

Your options get more interesting if you really want to leave as small a carbon footprint as possible. If you have no fear of ancient Chinese curses—and if you’ve correctly cleansed your chi with our recommended kumquat-juice-and-thyme-soul-enema—you have the option of previously-owned tombstones from east Asia. It’s a known fact that ghosts from the Orient can’t cross water, so unless their souls are caught in a cursed videotape, you should be okay.

3. Take Someone Else’s

If space is at a premium and you want to be a real dick, you can buy graves in England that already have 75 year-old human remains in them–you just scrub off the name of the previous deceased on the marker and replace it with your own. Somehow this is entirely legal, and even reasonably priced at 3,000 UK pounds (around $5,000). It’s more common, though, for secondhand tombstones to be used to make other things, like building supplies.

4. Costco? More Like Cost-NO

A popular misconception is that Costco sells tombstones. They don’t. And there’s absolutely no reason you should think the wholesale retailer would. Uh, except maybe for the fact that they do indeed sell caskets and urns. So if Costco’s your endgame, the only way to one-stop shop your death accessories there is cremation. And you can buy urns any time with no problem. Store loose change in them until you need them, too. Let them URN that privilege!

5. The Serious, Official Final Word (Besides God’s)

Don’t just take our word for it, though. You can always consult the International Southern Cemetery Gravestones Association, which helps you with things like not getting scammed by greedy cemeteries. Remember: Knowledge is power, and power means not giving your a-hole family a dime!

Image: Unsplash