Megan Flaherty, 17, skipped the limousine when she attended her junior prom at Pennsauken High School in New Jersey. She went with a different elongated car altogether: a hearse.
The 17-year-old didn’t stop there with the morbid theatrics, though. Her date pulled her out of the hearse in a full-sized coffin. Because this is 2017, someone filmed the dramatic entrance and posted the video to YouTube. Don’t worry; it’s shared at the end of this article.
Cue the vitriolic response.
“Attention-seeking at its worst,” sniffed one commenter.
“Classless, tasteless, and offensive,” judged another.
These commenters might not have been so quick to the keyboard if they had the whole story. See, Megan is planning a career as a funeral director. A family friend—the man who lent the limo and coffin—is her mentor. She volunteers at his funeral home regularly, doing whatever needs to be done, from vacuuming the floor to handing out prayer cards to mourners.
Besides, she has her own way of doing things.
“I like being different,” she told NJ.com.
Of course, none of this seems to make a difference to the teenager’s detractors.
“I am not surprised her goal is to be a funeral director,” continued one comment. “When she applies for the job, I am betting more than one funeral home will reject her for mocking the dead.”
Others took the opportunity to criticize Megan’s style choices or the “grace” with which she climbed out of the coffin.
“She needs to learn to walk in those kitten heels if she wants to make such a grand entrance,” wrote another Youtuber. “This is
The negative comments piled up, as they do.
Megan shook them off, which is impressive. Her mother leaped to her defense on social media, because where else.
“No disrespect meant,” Susan Flaherty, Megan’s mom, wrote on a social media post that has since been deleted. “[This was] just a celebration of knowing what she wants to do with her life after graduation and of course, celebrating Junior Prom.”
Flaherty pointed out that her daughter had known what she wants to do for a living for a year and a half already. She even has college plans lined up.
That’s pretty impressive for a high school junior.
“She just really took to it,” Flaherty told NJ.com, referring to Megan’s interest in the funeral industry. “She thought it was an honorable thing and an honorable way to make a living.”
Plus, the whole family has a theatrical side. They march every year in the Philadelphia Mummers Parade, donning strange outfits and playing instruments in a family string band. So it’s not surprising to Flaherty that her daughter would introduce a little drama into her junior prom.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about this whole non-event is Megan’s measured response to a screaming mob of shame-happy keyboard warriors. You want “grace?” Try this:
“Anything people do these days, people judge it,” Megan told NJ.com. “People have opinions.”
You can say that again. Anyway, watch the clip below and decide for yourself, but let’s all just agree to think a bit before we post hateful remarks in the comments section. And that goes for the whole internet, folks, and for all time—or at least until we’re lying in coffins of our own.
