Toe-Tags R Us

Blue Funk had a sense of mission. He was a godless missionary. To quote from his prewritten eulogy,

“As I look around me, I’m distressed by the sight of so many meat machines who are utterly enslaved and victimized by the mythical Jesus of the Bible. Who’ve been whipped into a frenzy of guilt and remorse by conniving clerics.

I agonize over their vassalage in contrast to my own emancipation. I have a residual hankering to free my fellow horny monkeys from their bondage to primitive superstition. Liberation from fear and ignorance is always a worthy cause.

What gives true meaning to life is the satisfaction of knowing that when you lie on a stainless steel tray in the morgue, your toe-tag will be embossed with the words: ‘Atheist.’

When I lie beside a Christian cadaver, I can take pride in the fact that my cadaver will have a secular toe-tag.”

So that’s how Blue Funk got involved in the toe-tag business—starting his very own compandy: Toe-Tags R Us. A company especially tailored to the special needs and sensibilities of the godless.

No self-respecting atheist would be caught dead with a Christian toe-tag. Why, that would be a fate worse than death.

Even in a room full of rotting corpses, he could hold his head up high in the thought that his big toe was properly labeled.

His company made and retailed a wide variety of toe-tags. From cheap, plastic tags for the pennywise cadaver to biodegradable tags for the environmentally sensitive cadaver—as well gilt-edged tags with custom-lettering for the cadaver that had everything, and wanted to make a statement.

Each toe-tag came with a 30-day, money-back guarantee.

Not only would this be a high-minded business, but it also ought to be lucrative, for it was cashing in on a neglected market niche. Or so he assumed.

Unfortunately, business was a little slow. Since the average atheist preferred having dogs to kids, there were not as many godless cadavers to service as he had hoped.

For a time he was able to negotiate a profitable partnership with a local retailer—Mercy Killers R Us—but, unfortunately, the replacement rate for dog-lovers over parents was insufficient to supply the involuntary euthanasia industry with a steady source of unwilling candidates, and that, in turn, depressed the market for support services like Toe-Tags R Us.

In desperation, he started to produce a line of Christian toe-tags as well.

On the face of it, this seemed to compromise his high-minded principles. But as a scrupulous unbeliever, he persuaded himself that it was necessary to increase his market share in order to finance the secular toe-tags.

And this, in turn, meant mass-producing more Christian toe-tags than secular toe-tags.

Unfortunately, the Christian consumer was even more interested in tombstones than toe-tags. So his expanded line of toe-tags only slowed the inevitable slide into bankruptcy. The river of red ink was reaching flood stage.

By the time that Blue Funk was wheeled into the morgue, Toe-Tags R Us had gone into receivership.

For some time now, the morgue was running low on preprinted toe tags from Toe-Tags R Us. Running out of secular toe-tags, I mean. For they were always in short supply.

At first, the preprinted toe tags were recycled.

But after a while they got dog-eared and smudgy from overuse. So the mortician began to tag godless cadavers with Christian toe-tags.

In the ensuing confusion, this meant that there was no longer any way of telling a godless cadaver from a godly cadaver.

As a result, Blue Funk found himself with a Christian toe-tag hanging from his big toe.

Well, maybe “found himself” is a bit misleading since, at this stage of the game, he wasn’t in much position to protest the gross slander on his life’s work.

His worldly reputation was dangling by a thread. And, to make matters worse, it wasn’t even the right thread.

Enough to make him roll in his grave.

He would have been mortified to see himself in such a compromising situation.

Well, he would have been mortified were he not suffering from a bad case of rigor mortis.

All in all, this was a pretty disappointing state of affairs. Despite his best-laid plans, death wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be.

Clearly life was fundamentally unjust. A bad joke. Gallows humor.

That was just another reason to be an atheist, as far as he was concerned—not that he was much concerned about anything in his present condition.

This crowning indignity was the final nail in the coffin. Except that he chose to be cremated.

At least, that’s his side of the story. On this side of the grave.

There’s a sequel, you know. Something about floating above his body, observing a fiery light in the distance, and faintly overhearing the noise of gnashing teeth.

But that, as they say, is another story.