Dust in the wind, or just blowback?

Who among us didn't die a little more inside today upon learning that Pluto, the frigid dwarf formerly known as the ninth planet, has fallen victim to more rogue skullduggery, being "demoted yet again" by scientists to an even lower status?

Yes, kids, it's a cruel world out there -- even Target "has stopped asking its customers whether anyone would notice if they disappeared from the face of the Earth."

Accordingly, I've been hard at work monitoring the latest developments regarding our collective approach to life and death, probing the mysteries of mortality and wrestling with the really real.

Or maybe I've just been getting a bit too into the "Six Feet Under" DVDs, gorging on the veritable buffet of gallows humor spread out in the news lately and, primarily, looking for an excuse to use the word "skullduggery."

Either way, be advised that we now live in a culture in which:

• To stay afloat financially, cemeteries are giving "Dead White Republicans" tours. This either means a monumental tradition is on its way to becoming a soulless victim of capitalism, or demand for spectral thespians to traumatize children and look effortlessly waiflike will skyrocket and I'll finally catch my big break.
  


• People write to Dear Abby asking whether it's proper, after scattering her ashes, to re-purpose your dead wife's urn as a flower vase. And Abby not only answers the question asked, she lets you know how "discreet" about it you should be with any new flames you bring home.


• Someone needs to write to Dear Abby and ask the proper etiquette for listing a dress code on funeral notices. "Bereaved-Casual?" "Somber-Formal?" "Presentable?" The grieving have enough to contend with without guests "dumbing it down, tarting it up" in their flip-flops and summer brights. At least try to look like you're honoring a life and mourning a passing, not merely making a grudging pit stop on the way to Applebee's.


• More embarrassing than being caught dead in shabby attire, when you head out to scatter a loved one's ashes, you run the very real possibility of running into others with the same idea, dusting their own carion over your preferred, now tainted parcel. A funerary tourism industry can't be far behind.
  


• If you've chosen to be cremated but haven't agreed upon a scattering place, your survivors, understandably, may not want the responsibility, or creepiness, of being eternal caretaker to your cremains. Who would? No one, that's who. You know, you should probably just kill yourself. But make sure you do it right and leave nothing behind. Plainly, no one here can be trusted.