Joan Rivers is not the only person who wrote elaborate directions as to the style and content of her own funeral.  I also have such instructions, but they differ a little from those of Ms. Rivers.  I want my funeral to be full of the things I can’t stand now.  I don’t want to enjoy anything about being dead — so here is how my send-off should go:

• All attendees must undergo security wanding and take their shoes and socks off.

• I want it to be a big showbiz affair with all the Hollywood personalities.  The one-name celebrities (Cher, Madonna, Bono, Beyonce, et al) get to sit at the front.

• I want an open-casket ceremony, with tearful multitudes waiting in line to grasp my cold dead hand, as they think to themselves, “I didn’t know he looked this bad!”

• Speaking of cold dead hands, I want to be buried with my automatic rifle.  Someone needs to go out and buy me one before the service.

• Put me in some flimsy polyester trousers that make it obvious which way I dress.

• Give me a clear-coat manicure.  Or what the hell, any color, as long as it is very shiny.

• I want Neil Diamond to sing “Cracklin’ Rosie” and throw in an extra verse or two of bah-bup-uppah-dah.  And if Mr. Diamond is not alive at the time of my funeral, I want all six-hundred attendees to bring iPods (which I also hate) and play “Cracklin’ Rosie” in unison, at full volume, through their earbuds.

• I want a famous Christian evangelist (Rick Warren will do, just as slippery as the rest) to proclaim to the crowd that I am in a better place now.  He should also assert that I really did love Jesus, in my own way, and that God is now reading my blog.

• In the same vein, I want at least three people to walk up to the lectern and tell the attendees what I would have wanted, if I were still alive.

• I want John Boehner to speak.  He’s good for a cry, and he will insult all my friends.

• I also want former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan to speak.  I want her to say, in her typical pained, melodramatic fashion, how tragically misguided my political beliefs were.   And I want her to say those very words — “tragically misguided.”

• For pallbearers, I select Vladimir Putin.  By himself.  With his shirt off.

• At the wake, I want the open bar to close down after fifteen minutes.  No, make that ten.  Why should I be the only one to suffer?

• Also at the wake, I want the server to go around and ask, “Beef Wellington or Pasta?”  Except that I want the Beef Wellington to abruptly “run out” after the first five people.

In the end, people who attend my funeral will be really sorry that I died!  As it should be.