Things Not to Say at a Wake

I'm Irish and therefore no stranger to wakes, funerals and cemeteries (even worked in one for a summer). I'm also a teacher and a writer, so you'd think with all the experience and all the tools I'd be able to choose the right words in a somber situation like a wake. Not the case. So the following is a list of things you should not say to any bereaved:

1. How's it going?

2. What's new?

3. Did he have work done? (In reference to the deceased)

4. Well, there's one less Christmas present you have to worry about.

5. He's never looked better. (in reference to the deceased)

6. Singing Madonna's Causing a Commotion in an alternating duet in the back of a limo on the way to the cemetery. (It made perfect sense at the time.)