Screw-up

火葬場で故人に最後のお別れをしようとしたら棺に横たわっていたのは全くの別人だった、という笑い話にもならないおはなしです。


This funeral home made a grave mistake.

A Michigan woman’s family gathered at Swanson Funeral Home last week to say their goodbyes, but found a stranger in her casket.

“I told them ‘that ain’t our mama,’” her son Maurice Dunn told news station WNEM.

Dunn said the family was stunned to find another person in his mother Alice Dunn’s casket at the funeral home in Flint, Michigan.

“It was a total stranger dressed in the clothing that my brother Joey [picked out] and the wig selected for our mother,” he said.

The family quickly informed the funeral home of the screw-up, but said employees were adamant the other person was their mother.
(Jackie Salo. ‘That ain’t our mama’: Grieving family finds stranger in casket. New York Post. May 3, 2017.)


アメリカ人がよく会話の中で、"screw up"という表現を使っていたのを思い出すのですが、何か困った状況になったときに使われることが多いようです。

故人を取り違えしてしまったのは葬儀屋の"a grave mistake"です。記事の後段では、"the screw-up"となっていますが、同義です。

以前取り上げた、"screw"の記事もご覧ください。