You have no doubt noticed, Dear Reader, that cemetery plots are becoming increasingly costly. Your subterranean condo will set you back many thousands of dollars. Further, cemeteries themselves are becoming vastly overcrowded, and new cemeteries are being located ever farther from cities and towns to districts in which no one of sound mind would ever reside, and hence resemble desolate, windswept prairies infested with tumbleweeds and rattlesnakes. [Many plot-shoppers appear to place great store on the view from the gravesite. It is the considered opinion of your Interlocutor, the Happy Pessimist, that the occupant of the grave is indifferent to the view, and none of his or her detested relatives will every visit the place after the will is probated.]

The question then immediately arises: what should one do with the stiff? One solution was provided to me many years ago by my six-year-old baby daughter upon the demise of my father. When informed that we were going to bury the old coot, she shuddered in horror and exclaimed “Don’t do that! Keep him around for a decoration.” We didn’t. The idea of locating his remains on my fireplace mantel (after the appropriate ministrations by a taxidermist) was unacceptable, and cheap burial plots were still available.

But what about today? You can’t just put the corpse in a landfill. In addition to violating local and state sanitary codes, this process increases the amount of waste clogging our environment. It is an affront to Gaia, the Earth Goddess. Waste threatens the polar bears, whose moral and ecological virtues are well-known. Polar bears love to eat cute little baby seals (thus saving them from being clubbed to death by mean hunters); their own cubs (which controls the polar bear population); and your children (which controls the human population). These are all worthy goals. But fear not! The government is here to help you. The Washington State Legislature has just (May 2019) passed SB5001, which legalizes human composting, and have sent it to the Governor for his signature.

It turns out that this milestone is yet another triumph of crony capitalism. It was achieved through the tireless efforts of Recompose, a firm which somehow got otherwise idle members of the faculty of Washington State University and six dead guys dedicated to scientific research to conduct a study proving that chucking the late lamented onto your backyard compost heap poses no threat to the environment nor to public health. It demonstrates that “recomposition uses about one-eighth of the energy of cremation and also has a significant carbon reduction, thanks in part from the sequestration that happens to the material during the process.” Reduction of the carbon footprint! Hurray!

So here we are. As the human composting approach heads east from the Left Coast, as do all really crazy ideas, funeral homes will become bankrupt, and your kiddies will have new opportunities to scream in horror when they see and smell their beloved grandparent rotting in the backyard. But your tomatoes will do great!