As I age, my mailbox has become a magnet for glossy invitations to retirement strategy luncheons, estate planning workshops, wealth management seminars (as if I had wealth to manage), term life insurance pitches, and pre-funeral planning. Not to mention AARP, which started WAY too many years ago, long before I even thought about retiring.

But today’s advertisement topped them all—a free seminar (and meal) for “smart cremation.”

Okay, so my first reaction was, “If there’s such a thing as SMART cremation, does that imply there is also such a thing as DUMB creation?” What would that even look like? Someone tossing you on the backyard fire pit with a bag of marshmallows? My twisted mind came up with several other possibilities, none of which are fit to print.

The brochure promised to explain “everything you need to know about cremation today,” as opposed to . . . what? Cremation in ancient times? Didn’t the Vikings put the deceased in a flaming boat and push it out to sea? That seems like a more dramatic and fitting send-off. The seminar covers everything you wanted to know about cremation, including costs, benefits, and travel and relocation, among other things, which makes me wonder if they ship your ashes in first-class or coach.

In all fairness, end-of-life arrangements are something we older folk should think about, especially if we don’t want to leave the details to Older and Younger Son, who would probably dump us on the compost pile and go out to celebrate at Joe’s Bar and Grill.

But then I saw the kicker. Do you know where they are holding this seminar? At a brick oven pizzeria. I snorted water out of my nostrils when I read the location. Does anyone besides me see the hilarious irony of holding a cremation seminar in the front of a restaurant that has giant ovens in the back? That’s a little too close to foreshadowing for comfort. This begs the obvious question (to me, anyway), as to whether smart cremation involves double-duty pizza ovens that bake pepperoni pizza by day and dearly departed by night.

They even listed the menu in the brochure. Somehow, my appetite took a nosedive. Now, ordinarily, I have a pretty strong stomach. I can eat spaghetti while discussing oozing lesions or dehiscing incisions—complete with graphic slides—at a veterinary meeting. But pizza? While learning about burning bodies? In a restaurant with industrial 700-degree ovens humming away behind the swinging door? No thanks. Hopefully, there are no demonstrations.

I might be willing to attend a seminar about the options available for the disposal of my mortal remains, but the venue has got to change. In this particular case, the setting matters. Perhaps hold it in an ice-cream parlor, or a smoothie bar, or by a taco truck. Anything that doesn’t involve brick ovens.

Because while cremation may be my last chance for a smoking hot body, I’d rather not be mistaken for the day’s lunch special.