Fandango’s One-Word Challenge:CLUSTER
Gertrude Abercrombie, Pink Carnations, 1939
On my first day of work as a Mortician’s Apprentice I wore my favorite dress, for luck.
It wasn’t an expensive dress and it didn’t look like a dress I would normally wear. It was black ( surprise ) and had a floral print.
The flowers sort of looked like tiny carnations and they were pink and blue, green and orange- but they weren’t natural looking pinks and blues and orange which is why I liked them. They were all clustered together in random bunches and they sort of glowed.
So on my first day I assisted in an embalming and I went to the cabinet with the Funeral Director to get our supplies.
Lined up on the shelf were bottles of embalming fluid and embalming spray and what was funny was that my little carnations were the same exact colors as the embalming fluids.
Sometimes in life you are exactly where you should be and that day was one of those days for me.
For how long did you work in this job? And, why are the chemicals such psychedelic colors? Is it to insure you don’t mix them up? I’d be very interested in how you came to this job. How old were you? You mention so nonchalantly “On my first day as an……” It has quite an effect.
The Manufacturers add color to some of the fluids, why they use the colors they choose is up to them. I took the job because, as the saying goes, I felt it was my calling. I didn’t go on for my license because at the time I would have had to move out of the state to attend Mortuary College so I went as far as I felt I could go. We now have a college but I’m not interested in a career change.
Truth?
Yes. This is a true story.