I'M always on the hunt for the ideal job, one that pays well and uses my frighteningly limited skills to their utmost.
I'm therefore intrigued to discover that hiring oneself out as a funeral mourner is now an option.
Obviously, for that job it would be ideal if one were able to muster tears at the bat of an eye, and - hallelujah! - I'm a virtual Streep at that.
I don't fake it. I assure you, it's pure personal weakness. The older I get, the more often I get verklempt, a Yiddish word meaning "choked with emotion."
This is so routine that my husband Stanley refers to it as "verklempting out," as in, "Jeez, who showed Mum the puppy photos? She's verklempting out again."
My face gets red, I start to sputter, and I can't proceed with my desired remark, even if it's something as pitifully innocuous as "DC Comics has announced the death of Robin." You know, Robin - Batman's ward. Sob!
Of course, everybody with a beating heart is stricken when it comes to the funerals of their own loved ones, or news of nasty things happening to innocent people. That's good and right.
Unfortunately, I also happen to verklempt out when, for example, I read about an incident of kindness and try to share it with my family.
I begin telling some agreeable tale about a cat choosing not to eat the scruffy three-legged mouse that accidentally limped up to it, and suddenly the waterworks rush in with the force of spring runoff in Lynn Canyon.
It's horribly embarrassing. After all, this doesn't mean I'm any more sensitive than the next person - it just means I have no self-control.
Suddenly, though, I understand that I've had the wrong attitude. It's time to turn my moist frown upside down, for it seems that in England, you can charge 40 British pounds an hour (that's almost $70 in real money) to show up at a funeral service looking morose.
The founder of the Essex outfit Rent-a-Mourner - which employs a staff of 20 and has doubled its business since it started up last year - told the Telegraph that its bereaved clients hire faux grievers to ensure that the turnout isn't too skimpy (or, I suspect, cheerful). They're briefed on the deceased so they'll remain undetected as they mingle and murmur over post-funeral tea and sandwiches.
"At the moment it's not the sort of thing most people can treat as a career, but if it continues to increase in popularity then crying on demand could soon become a highly prized skill," consumer expert Jasmine Birties told the Telegraph newspaper.
This isn't just an English thing, either. According to the Oklahoma Daily News, at the Dallas, Tex., Golden Gate funeral home, professional mourners attend a 90-minute class before Golden Gate charges US$250 apiece for their service.
No doubt these classes establish the protocols of funerals, like what to wear and the inadvisability of trading text messages during the eulogy.
I'm fine at that sort of thing. The most important aspect of the job from my point of view is that in this context, tears are a bonus, perhaps even worth tipping, rather than the shameful display I make of them for free.
The Telegraph's story on this phenomenon suggested that East Asian and Middle Eastern traditions inspired the rent-a-mourner scheme.
A little Wikipedia research revealed that "moirologists" have existed for eons - they're even mentioned in the Bible. It's tempting to confuse these pseudo-mourners with France's placebo singers, who, once upon a time, attended the funerals of people with whom they had no connection, in hopes of a bite to eat or some of the money that was sometimes handed out to funeral congregations.
In Rajasthan, India, lower-caste women called rudaali are still paid to show up and ostentatiously mourn upper-caste males so their own families don't disgrace themselves by doing so.
In parts of China, "kusangren" make sure the person who's passed away gets an emotional farewell, some of them going so far as to bring along a sound system and a team of back-up mourners.
According to an article on the Mother Nature Network online, hirees like Hu Xinglian start off their event by gathering impromptu background material, eating outdoors with the family, and then, as friends and neighbours crowd around, smoking, talking, and (sigh) making telephone calls, she simulates grief, singing, crying, dancing, shaking hands and even "falling to her knees and crawling." It sounds like Elvis at his worst, but apparently if such fanfare does not occur, the departed's descendants suffer a loss of face in the village.
Tempting though this multi-media approach might be, I won't take it since I'm no artiste. I just want that $70-plus, and I'm one of those rare individuals who really appreciates a good crustless egg salad sandwich.
For access to those, I'm prepared to be a secondary, even tertiary character in the drama. I won't seize the spotlight, but I will surely weep on cue.
