Personally, I don’t anticipate being planted anywhere particularly, so no epitaph is necessary. (The plan is for the kid to chuck me and the hubs off a bluff in Yellowstone on a windy day—hopefully in such a way that he avoids arrest.)

That said, I am a great fan of brevity, and epitaphs are good for that.

I am also a fan of humor, so “Beloved spouse and mother” won’t cut it (and would be pretty unlikely, since nobody in my family talks or thinks that way. “Yeah, we’ll miss her” would probably be closer.)

Mel Blanc’s is “That’s all, folks!”

My grandfather always said he wanted, “I told you I was sick!” (This wish went unfulfilled.)

Another one I remember hearing or seeing somewhere was “I’d rather be reading this.”

It was also a parlor game among the Algonquin Roundtablers (and others of the era). George Kaufman was credited with, “Epitaph for a dead waiter – God finally caught his eye.” Dorothy Parker famously chose “Pardon my dust.” Another story has Robert Benchley sitting next to an actress famous for love affairs who claimed she could not think of an epitaph for herself and Benchley helpfully offering: “She sleeps alone at last.”(This story is also ascribed to others, but it seems very Benchley-esque.) 

If I did need an epitaph, I think I’m partial to something along the lines of “Marked safe in my second location.”

I like this game. What is your epitaph?