X 3 HOW I NEARLY WAS KILLED 30 Neither Nettie nor Clark had seemed heartbroken when I told them not to expect me for dinner. Clark had spent the afternoon sulking over having been kept from checking his traps, and Nettie had not forgiven me for the crime of squandering far too much money on a coffin. After the sales pitch in the display room of Mr. Spaulding’s Heavenly Rest Funeral Home, she drew me into a corner for a lecture on the subject of sensible behavior. Still under the illusion that my decision had to be sensible because it was mine, I reminded Nettie that I was spending my own money on my mother’s burial. She couldn’t argue with that, could she? I should have known better. Mr. Spaulding’s ambassadorial presence filtered in and out of view, and Clark shifted his shoulders in his conga-player’s shirt and sneered at the velvety carpet. When I took the leather chair before Mr. Spaulding’s desk and made out the check, Nettie muttered in complaint. It occurred to me that my selection of the third-least expensive coffin over the bottom of the line had violated the principle that there was no sense spending money on the dead when you could give it to the living.
