I had this one fat, dago aunt on the Italian side of my family.... Aunt Louisa...Jesus...what an old battle ax. The broad wore a black shawl and a pair of what looked like army boots her entire life...morose, sullen... dramatic... Anyhow, I stayed unmarried until I was like 37 or 38. I guess among those of dirt-floor ethnic derivation, that is unseemly. So every time I was at a wedding when I still went to weddings, Aunt Louisa would waddle up to me in her black shawl and army boots, pinch both my cheeks with her fat fingers and say in some guttural peasant's accent... "you're next!".
So the day came when one of the other old ethnic aunts croaked... Aunt Arcangelina. I was sitting toward the back of the funeral room amongst the gladiolus surveying possible exit routes so I could slip out before some creepy old priest came in and started rattling off the rosary... which is some bizarre Catholic ritual meant to conjure the undead. I could see that fat old hen clucking her way in with her army boots and purse the size of a steamer trunk. When she got right in front of me and before she could open her mouth, I grabbed both her chipmunk cheeks with my hands and said "You're next!". And then I got the hell out of Dodge. That might have been the last funeral I went to and the last time I saw Aunt Louisa. I didn't go to her funeral. We weren't that close. She was like married to my dad's half-brother and she was Sicilian to boot...which are like Italian versions of hillbillies.