Ashes To Ashes by Matthew Edwards


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Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, But Rita Got Returned To Wal-Mart OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - A Nebraska woman who received an ornate box for Christmas and returned it to Wal-Mart without looking inside discovered later it contained the ashes of her recently deceased sister, a newspaper reported on Friday. Judy Money received the box as a gift from her brother who lives in Iowa. But after unwrapping the package on Christmas Eve she saw the box had a broken knob and decided to return it to Wal-Mart without ever looking at the contents inside, the Omaha World-Herald reported. When Money later confessed to her brother that she had returned his gift, he told her the box contained the ashes of their sister, who had died Dec. 11, the Herald said. Marvin Tippery, Money's brother, told the Herald he was shocked when he found out she had returned the box. "No, no, you didn't! Your sister was in there," the Herald quoted him as telling Money. Money told the Herald she made a mad dash back to Wal-Mart, but the box had already been thrown out with the trash. Money and her brother finally found the box on Thursday amid trash piles at an area landfill. "My prayers have been answered," she told the Herald. "Just the thought of having her in the dump was awful."

Ashes To Ashes by Matthew Edwards

Matthew's Comments: This is definitely an "Ashes to ashes" story if ever I heard one, so something to the tune of Didn't He Ramble seems appropriate.

My mother raised up three young kids, Rita, Marv, and me,
But Rita was the rambler in our family.
She rambled in Iowa, in the country and the town,
She rambled every night and day, 'til the butcher cut her down.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
If the rambling don't get you, the landfill must.

Now Marvin put her ashes in an ornate little box,
He posted it to Omaha, but the postman broke the locks.
I took the box to Wal-Mart, to change it for some cash,
They threw it out the back door to mingle with the trash.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
If the rambling don't get you, the landfill must.

So don't you go a rambling; you'll be cut down in your prime,
You'll be lying in a landfill tip long before your time.
The moral of this story is - remember if you're able -
Post your Christmas gifts in time, and don't forget the label!

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
If the rambling don't get you, the landfill must.