Hankies are dumb

So... funerals suck enough.
Im about to get ready for another one at the end of this week, which precipitated this rant.

I asked my mom who was coming, and she said she didn't know... but added that people don't like funerals.

NO SHIT.

I don't go because they are "fun."  I go out of respect because no one wants 5 people at their funeral.
And... to support those left behind.  The loved ones.  Who need to know their person was special to others too.

My grandmother's "dying wish" was that I sing at her funeral.  If that wasn't some BS.  It was a hard enough day, and now you want me to sing???  I don't know how I made it through the song but Im sure I sounded awful.

Okay, so back to the story that brought us here.  The first funeral of which I have vivid memories happened my senior year when a friend and classmate killed himself under kind of suspicious circumstances.  It was a shock.  To all of us.

So, there we are, at the funeral, with a bunch of us squeezed into the same pew bawling our heads off.  Im sure we sounded like a gaggle of dying cats for THE ENTIRE SERVICE.  Well I must have looked especially pathetic as I excessively sniffled trying to stifle a full on bawling session, because at some point an older man turned around and offered me his handkerchief.

I gracefully accepted the kind offering, and that was where any modicum of grace ended.

WHAT THE BEJEEZ AM I SUPPOSE TO DO WITH YOUR HANKIE?

Not wanting to be rude, I used the mf...
               ...and it wasn't to coyly dab my eyes.

I was so despondent I wasn't thinking straight and I unloaded a ginormous snot rocket into this man's hankie.   Half the church heard it, I'm sure... including the donor of the cloth snot collecting square.

IT FELT GREAT.  All that pressure that was building over the course of the service had instantly dissipated.

Until I realized what I had actually done.
I had just fully vacated the contents of my entire nasal cavity into a stranger's hankie.
It was actually heavy.  Not so heavy I could throw it into a sock and knock someone out with it, but it was not light.

NOW WHAT ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH DO I DO?
I politely tried to fold it in half a bazillion times in an attempt to contain the volume of God-only-knows-what that I had just unloaded into this poor stranger's hankie.


DO I GIVE IT BACK?
DO I KEEP IT?

I had no idea what to do.  It seemed odd handing this man a handful of snot, but it didn't feel right keeping it either.

I wanted to die.  I wanted to hop in the casket and just hide.

So I did the unthinkable.
I tried to minimize the damage by wiping it on the underside of the pew.  Don't judge.  Im pretty sure God understood in the moment.

It was soaked.

I waved it back and forth under the pew as I sat there trying to dry it out to no avail.  I looked at my friend for help and she had nothing.  She even cracked a smile because I'm sure I had a look of utter horror on my face.

After the service as we followed the casket out, I handed the man back his handkerchief, doing my best to avoid making eye contact.  I would later learn it was the deceased's uncle.  I don't know if that tidbit made it better or worse.

The moral of this story?
HANKIES ARE DUMB.
DON'T ACCEPT HANKIES FROM STRANGERS.

OR CANDY.