When hospital worker Angie Williams headed off to work at 6 a.m. on Moanalua Road, the last thing she expected to see was a mannequin dressed as a doctor standing in a display window in front of a casket. Casket tableau alarms
By Leila Fujimori
some Moanalua motorists
Star-Bulletin"You kind of jump up a little bit," Williams said. "You feel kind of shocked."
Some drivers think the mannequin is a real person at first and are puzzled at the unusual sight.
Williams said the macabre window display is gruesome and a tasteless display of death.
"Everybody is entitled to their opinion," said Claus Hansen, co-owner of Affordable Casket and Moanalua Mortuary. "We've done that to get some attention."
The company, formerly known as Affordable Casket Outlet, moved to the Mapunapuna location just east of Bob's Big Boy Family Restaurant two months ago from Nimitz Highway.
Affordable Casket will change its display, in part because of a few complaints, Hansen said.
"Once we got some attention, we decided to do something different," Hansen said.
The company will open a full-service mortuary Monday at that location.
Williams said the advertising ought to be toned down. "It's very eye-catching," she said. "You can't help but have it slamming in your face."
The brightly lit window worries Williams, who said the display might cause an accident.
Tripler nurse Devra Chun catches sight of the bushy-browed mannequin holding a telephone and casket every night she gets off work around midnight.
"Is this just an advertisement in poor taste or a warning to drivers to slow down?" Chun wondered.
She said she got a good laugh out of it.
"I've seen so much death and have experienced or know of it firsthand in my profession," she said.
But like Williams, Chun finds it rubs her the wrong way. Maybe it's due to her old-fashioned values of being respectful of death, the 53-year-old said. "If sex is such an open thing, maybe now death is an open thing," Chun said.