WalMart Caskets: Bring out your dead. Would you buy one?

I refuse to walk into Wal-Mart on principle, but maybe I'll just be carried out in one of its caskets. The cut-rate retailer, blamed for destroying "Mom and Pop" stores throughout the country, is now after funeral home businesses and selling caskets and urns online. And, in this fight, I'm pulling for Wal-Mart.

Catering for cradle-to-grave needs, Wal-Mart already sells everything from baby wear to engagement ring at low prices. Prices for the store's caskets range from a "Mom" or "Dad Remembered" steel coffin for $895 to a bronze model at $2,899. From some of the numbers I've seen, the national cost average for a wood coffin is between $1,588 and $3,277. The average cost of a metal coffin is between $880 and $6,227. The funeral service industry generates $11 billion in revenue a year, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.

Truthfully, I'm signed up for cremation. Give any part useful away and barbecue the rest. I'm always stunned by how much people spend on funerals. But maybe a sleek Wal-Mart urn will do. What do you think?

For a laugh, I posted Monty Python's Bring out your dead scene from the Holy Grail.