If only he didn't look as if he came cheap.

His minister wear was disheveled, as if he'd just returned from a quickie with the slutty parishioner who sits in the front pew of his church and laughs at the jokes about Leviticus in his Sunday sermons. His hair was brushed and sprayed into one of the most remarkable comb-overs I've ever seen. His ruddy nose twitched nervously as he gazed at the gaudy trappings of the funeral home.

The walls were mirrored, the better to see the corpse from any location in the room. The chairs for the Important Mourners -- Grandma Inés and Nana Vincenzina -- were plush black velvet. The funeral director was an emaciated woman with long, stringy blonde hair. She wore diamond-studded sunglasses, black stretch pants, a black t-shirt and black jacket. On the jacket was a large ruby-and-diamond-encrusted stop sign pin.

At least she was honest about where the money was going.

The Less Important Mourners continued to talk as the minister cleared his throat and coughed and shouted for everyone to shut the fuck up. After a few minutes of the class ignoring the teacher, Nana Vincenzina, she of red hair and blackened heart, stood up, turned on the water works and beat her chest.

She was a regular Celine Dionese.

Everyone stopped talking. And they waited. They waited for it to come. It always did. Give it a few minutes, and there it was.

Snort.

Nana Vincenzina snorts. We don't know if it's a side effect of one of her numerous maladies or a small price to pay for her alliance with Satan or a Glucophage pill embedded in her nasal passage. But whatever causes it, she doesn't know that she's doing it.

Nana Vincenzina is hard of hearing. We don't know if it's a side effect of one of her numerous maladies or a small price to pay for her alliance with Satan or the result of servicing too many fresh-off-the-boat Eye-talians in her youth. But whatever causes it, she doesn't know that her ears have failed her.

Nana Vincenzina hates us.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked. "What's so funny? Do I have something hanging from my nose?" she wanted to know.

Snort.

"I don't get it!" she shouted. "Why are you laughing?" she asked.

Everyone stopped laughing. They started snorting. As the minister, no member of the upper echelons himself, looked on in disbelief.

A man dies. A man dies after a long illness. A man dies, and his family is snorting at his funeral.

He'd be proud.

A fitting tribute to a man who worked two jobs to support a lazy wife who believes she's descended from aliens and his eight children, five of whom dropped out of high school. A fitting end for a man who hated his guinea-wop-goomba-dirty-Catholic mother-in-law with a passion worthy of the Northern Ireland conflict.

Here a snort, there a snort. Everyone was a-snort-snortin'.

The minister tried to take control. He banged his fist on the podium. He loudly cleared his throat. He threatened us with eternal damanation. He told us that the baked ziti at the reception hall was getting cold.

The laughter and snorting started to die down. The minister had his opening, and he started his sermon: "Our father has many rooms in his mansion..."

"Oh, yeah, do any of them have the Playboy Channel?" my wannabe mafioso uncle asked.

No one wants to kill his braciole and racketeering dreams by telling him that he's only a quarter Italian, and could never become a made man. If wearing a pinstriped suit and picking up women on AOL under the pretenses of being a small-time thug named Nicky Peanuts makes him happy, who are we to deprive him of that?

The minister started again. "Our father has many rooms in his mansion..."

He looked around. No one said a word. Nana Vincenzina, the demon in a technicolor housedress, weeped. She hated her son-in-law. Called him a worthless mick. But this was her time to shine.

"Oh, Ian, Ian. Why did you have to die? Why were you taken from us? *snort* Why? Why? Why? Oh, Ian, Ian!"

I'd like to thank the Academy and Frank Sintra and my Dark Lord and Connie Francis.

Providing jack-off material for white misogynists since 1997.

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