Urning My Keep As A Cubs Writer

Three days after returning from my Sordid Travels of a Cubs Fan: Colorado trip, during which I experienced the unfortunate passing of my girlfriend's father, I was surprised to find in my inbox a message from a representative from Brand Memorials, a company that manufactures MLB-themed urns and caskets. Nick, the VP of sales and marketing, had read my article for BCB about the Cubs Fan Burial Wall published last Halloween and offered to send me a Cubs urn free of charge. As a person who rarely turns down anything free, I sent him my address finding it uncanny that a week after needing an urn, I was being given one. In fact, I found it quite jarring. Pun intended.

Within a few days, a delivery man brought me my eternal resting place.

Forever, I'll be safe at home!

The detail on this urn is exquisite. From the homeplate stand to the painted stitching below the lid to the removable encased baseball on top, this urn is the perfect place for any Cubs fan to spend the afterlife.

The urn is rather large and thus necessitates a larger and more expensive "Eternal Sky Box" plot in the Cubs Fan Burial Wall, but a handsome urn like this would be better off on display, rather than encased in a wall or buried. As of now, it's perched in my bathroom. It wouldn't fit on my knick-knack shelves or anywhere else in my one-bedroom apartment, but it's definitely become quite the conversation piece amongst my friends who find it entertainingly morbid. I was thinking I could put it to good use in the meantime as a cookie jar, but I'm trying to lose weight so as to not end up in the urn sooner than later. Plus, I need the counter space.

So how much did I "urn" by receiving a free urn? This particular urn retails for $599. Which, considering that you will be dead for eternity, amortizes into fractions of fractions of pennies a day. Not a bad deal. They also have all 30 current major league teams! Sorry Expos fans, you're just gonna have to find a different receptacle.

Brand Memorials also offers Cubs caskets for those who have already shelled out for a plot.

The velvet interior and sleek black wooden exterior of this casket is trimmed with logos, leaving no doubt to your loved ones or any potential grave robbers where your baseball allegiances lie. Retailing at $2,399, this casket will run you more than double the proverbial pine box, but once again, this is eternity we're talking about and it's no time to skimp. I think this casket is so cool, it's a shame it's designed to be buried!

Furthermore, Brand Memorials offers licensing of MLB logos for use on any headstone or marker for $99.

Please don't read anything into the fact that I chose a Cardinals fan's grave, I liked this monument style best amongst the demo models. In fact, I find it sad he died young. He was born a year after me!

To have your fandom proclaimed on your marker, you have to license the logo from MLB through Brand Memorials, and then hire your monument maker of choice to make the gravestone. $99 is pretty affordable when you consider that it's less than the price of just three officially licensed Cubs hats.

Also available through a 3rd party distributor is a boxed set for the wake, which includes a registry, service records, stationary, a pen, candles, and a grief pamphlet, the last of which most Cubs fans could probably use while alive.

I couldn't get any pricing information for the boxed set after contacting Bass-Mollett, the manufacturer, as they deal only with funeral homes, and these items aren't for sale to the public. You know what that means -- you're going to be charged at least double by your friendly neighborhood funeral director.

So with the 2014 season dead and buried, maybe it's a good time to think about where you'll spend your eternity in the same state. Last year, I did! And it "urned" me an urn. Sorry, that joke is too good not to repeat.

My plan is to be buried in the Cubs Fan Burial Wall in Bohemian National Cemetery on the Northwest side. In fact, you can donate to my eternal Cubs fan resting place here. I'm almost 14 percent to my grave goal thanks to generous donations from Cubs FanFoto photographer Katelyn Kelley, a Twitter friend, and other generous people in my life. My plan is to secure my final destination before I die, so I can enjoy my grave before I'm in it. I have plans for a dedication ceremony, seasonal picnics, and hours of peaceful contemplation. Unfortunately, due to the size of my new urn, I'm going to have to shell out $800 above my original funding goal for a "Double Eternal Skybox" in the wall just to fit a free $600 urn. But at least I'll be in the prime rows at eye level.

Don't worry! Despite the mostly inedible Decade Dogs I ate at Wrigley this year, I am not dying until the Cubs win a World Series Championship. I mean that in urn-est.

In the meantime, a big thanks to Brand Memorials for giving me a home for all eternity, and something for Cubs players at this years Cubs Convention to autograph besides my gnome.