Being an only child, I'm going to inherit everything my parents own except a few keepsakes for other relatives. Family photos and my mom's recliner are about the only things that I foresee keeping. (Well, the house too, although I regard that as something of a white elephant with a fair amount of equity.)

There is a beautiful piece of furniture that has been in my family for generations that I so want. However, it always gets passed to the oldest boy. So my brother will get it one day. No fair!

Erin, your dad should look into "green" funerals -- there is such a thing. The body is minimally prepared (no embalming) and the casket is simple wood which will decompose rapidly and return the contents to the earth. There is also cremation!

Daddy is more into "cheap" than "green." He's offended by the notion that you have to pay to be dead.

In my family, the women inherit. It pisses them off that they have to have a document in the States that says so.

BTW, Gloomcookie, likely on behalf your brother ... you want the old furniture? Get up in that.

I'm not entirely sure how this happened, but my mother ended up with custody of fully half a dozen sets of various ancestors' wedding china, not to mention a fair bit of silverware. She's already said she plans to divvy it up among my sisters and our female cousins when we start getting married.

As for jewelry, last year my mom took a ring of my great-grandmother's and had the stones resest into three necklaces. The ring was a big tear-shaped opal surrounded by little diamonds-- I got the opal and one diamond on a pendant, my sister got a couple of the little diamonds plus a bigger one from an old earring, and my mom got the rest of the diamonds in a necklace for herself. Everybody wins!

Plus, I like having a piece of jewelry with history to it, and no guilt over where the stones might come from.

You boys are watching, right? Give all your material crap to the ladies. It will impress them and you can just standby to receive stud-credits. Plus, they have to keep track of it all.

However, it always gets passed to the oldest boy. So my brother will get it one day.

Well . . . there are ways around that, you know . . . like, if there wasn't an oldest boy around at the relevant time . . .

if there wasn't an oldest boy around at the relevant time

See? Otherwise, it comes down to plotting the early demise of the males.

Daddy is more into "cheap" than "green." He's offended by the notion that you have to pay to be dead.

If he converts to Judaism at the last minute he could get out of being enbalmed (I think).

It could simply be a case of oldest boy being off on an open-ended journey to darkest Antarctica, or something, and "Of course I'll take care of that for him till he gets back, I'll make sure it has the best of treatment--until, you know, he gets back."