Then leave the underwear on the corpse.
Cancer isn’t a contagious disease so it’s pretty fine to wear it.
So I’m guessing that you don’t buy clothes that are on sale either, becuase you can afford not to? And I’m also guessing that you don’t bother to recycle, because you can afford to pollute right? I think there’s a word for people like you, but I don’t want to derail the thread and I’m also having trouble selecting just one.
Unless there’s some really weird memory attached to them “This is the jacket Uncle Bill wore when he was killing hookers” or something, I’d happily wash and wear them if they fit.
Sure. Why not?
I can see where you might not want to wear something from someone who has died if that article of clothing had some kind of special personal memory attached.
While some people might like to wear grandpa’s old hunting jacket in the winter, others might find it kind of sad and melancholy.
Or if you hated Uncle Fred, you might not want to wear anything he ever touched.
The flip side of that would be some women who are quite proud to wear a wedding dress their great grandmother wore, and their grandmother, etc.
However, if the person was unknown, or not particularly close to you, it shouldn’t matter. Hand me down’s from older siblings, or from cousins, etc. are pretty normal in large families - so unless you have never worn any used clothing of any kind, I don’t see the difference.
Now, when grandma says, “Here’s grandpa’s favorite jock he wore in high school…” well, that would probably draw the line.
Followup: I got the clothes yesterday. Some jackets, some shirts still in wrappers, and a pair of shorts. I think I’ll skip the shorts, but otherwise I’ll probably wear most of them.
But when trying on the jackets, I found a digital camera in a pocket. The battery was completely drained, so it’s been there a while. I emailed my brother, and he told me they’ve been looking everywhere for the camera, and not to lose it, because it’s got some very important pictures on it. So now I’m curious what the pictures are. Final pictures with family members? Important evidence in a lawsuit? Freshly murdered hookers? I’m waiting back to hear whether he wants me to send him the camera or wait a few weeks until the next time I see him.
[SIGH] Muldoon, muldoon, muldoon. Do we have to spell it all out to you? Jesus, man. Isn’t it obvious? You’re not a real person; you’re a character in a mystery novel. In fact, you’re the narrator. My dog could’ve figured that out. And in case you’re going to continue being the babe-in-the-woods, next you’re going to give in to temptation and look at the photos on that camera…get it, now? They’re going to have some very, uh, embarrassing shots of someone in a high position somewhere. Then you’re going to overhear someone in the locker room of your tennis club talking about your sister-in-law’s brother–he’s the coroner who examined the body, and he’s going to be jokingly (but cryptically) telling a friend about how amusing it was that the death certificate said, “cancer, ha ha! But don’t ask me; I’m just the coroner, ha ha. Hey, Jack, how 'bout a drink before home?..” You’re going to become so suspicious that you’re going to sneak into the office of the tennis club to find out more about this “coroner,” only to find that he’s not really a coroner at all, but as you’re coming out of the door of the office, you’re going to run into the president of the club, who is going to pretend that he doesn’t suspect a thing, but then in a shot that only we can see, he’s going to exhibit a very worried face as you walk off, and next week you’ll discovered that the member who was the “coroner” has “gone to Peru for a vacation” suddenly, but you go to his address to snoop around and find out that the house has been vacated, and while you’re looking around a car will speed by and a gunshot will be fired at you only barely missing, and then…
…well, you’ll find out.
P.S. Oh, com’on, man–you forgot to say that they had “the smell of death.” Jeeze, have you no sense of cliche?
I inherited various articles of clothing from my father after he died; it’s no big deal.
Still have some of my granddad’s old shirts in a closet; they’re a little too fragile (and I’m a little too big) to wear any more but I don’t plan on getting rid of them. Somewhere there is photographic evidence that one of the shirts is older than I am.
tdn, I think that was the style of ties in those days - the end of it would be nicely hidden by a vest or waistcoat for most of the time it was worn. Admittedly, I’m only going on the scene where Albert Finney kicks the shit out of Gabriel Byrne in Miller’s Crossing so naturally YMMV.
Sure, and I have worn several things from my father and kept items like watches and pocket knives from my grandfather. Though, when my father in law died and I got his almost new bedroom slippers, remembering his horny old toenails bothered me, and I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy them, so I did toss them.
Last summer I got my neck fixed, which included cutting bone plugs from a cadaver and fitting them into holes cut through a couple of cervical spinal disks, with a fixation plate. I wondered if it would make me feel weird knowing I had dead guy parts in my spine where I would never be able to get rid of them (other than by gradually replacing bone cells I guess). But the mechanical improvement won out. I tried messing with Mrs. Napier a bit, as she believes in ghosts, but couldn’t find the right angle, so that petered out too.
By the way, this was my first experience with high HIV risk behavior, and it wasn’t nearly the wild fun I’d always heard it should be…