Dear Prudence,

My wife just received a series of text messages about the date and time of a funeral to take place about a week from now. This was not especially surprising as the man had been ill for some time.

After a few calls to get details, my wife discovered that the man was still alive! He had taken a turn for the worse and was in a coma, so his wife had decided to go ahead and schedule the funeral.

While advance planning is certainly convenient, most of those I have spoken to believe that the setting of the date should have waited until there was an actual death. Your thoughts?

—Feeling Morbid

Dear Feeling,

Talk about "death panels"! Not even Sarah Palin has had the audacity to imagine the advent of scheduling people's funerals before they actually die in order to get the old and sick to move along.

You're right that in cases where it's possible, advance planning is a good idea. The mother of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mum, spent decades meticulously planning her funeral down to the candlesticks. But even though she died at 101, she never said, "You might as well go ahead and pick a date to stick me in the ground. How much longer can I possibly last?"

It is rather chilling that the wife is texting everyone with the news. (Did she write, "Hubby OOH; funeral Sat"?) I suppose you can be grateful that as a further convenience, she's not sending around advance information about her wedding gift registry in case she finds a candidate for remarriage.

However, refrain from pointing out to the widow-to-be that her behavior is appalling. She'll be an actual widow soon enough, so all of you should just act as if her grief has gotten the best of her. Go ahead and mark the date of the funeral on the calendar, but write it in pencil in case the pre-deceased manages to outlive his wife's designated expiration date.

—Prudie