Pink Moan

June 19th, 2008 by Gnat

I saw the most amazing program on the National Geographic channel last night. It was part of their Taboo series (which is often a bit too gory for even me to stomach), and this particular episode was on taboo jobs. Half the show focused on a company, simply called Crime Scene Cleaners, who do just that. These are the people you call if you are a landlord and some poor soul tops him/herself on your property and isn’t discovered for days, or if one of your loved ones shuffles off his/her mortal coil in an unsightly, unexpected way and you are left to pick up the pieces. Don’t snicker, because each and every one of us could be faced with a situation like this at some point in our lives. Obviously cleaning up after the messy death of a loved one is far too much to bear for most folks. That’s why these professionals exist — they possess the inner strength, tenacity, healthy spiritual foundation and necessary level of detachment to complete some damn horrific tasks. For example, part of last night’s episode showed the attention to detail required by one professional when cleaning and decontaminating the wheels of a subway car, under which someone had hurled himself.

The owner of Crime Scene Cleaners, based out of San Antonio, was interviewed several times during the course of the episode. I was blown away by this man’s almost militant “just do it” attitude. Some might consider his outlook insensitive, but I was impressed by his no-nonsense stance. He commented that humor was one coping mechanism which proved absolutely necessary when working in his field. He also poignantly posed that his company isn’t in the business of cleaning up entities, but just what is left behind of them when they go. See? There’s that healthy spiritual foundation and necessary detachment at work.

I was especially taken by this man’s comment that “cleaning fat Joe up off the couch is a whole different story than cleaning Bambi up off the side of the road.” See, we humans put lots of crap in our bodies that can render us little more than a steaming heap of toxic waste after we die. Yuck. This notion got me to thinking about eating better and living healthier — not only will doing so benefit me while I’m alive, but it may even reduce my carbon footprint upon the planet after I’m gone. Hows about that for living (and dying) “green”?