There are traditions--like Friday-evening get-togethers--and then there are traditions, like sleeping in a casket every Friday night. A guy in Brazil has slept in a casket every Friday night for 23 years running. Zeli Rossi, of Brazil's southeastern state of Minas Gerais, swaps out a mattress for a coffin once a week.
The story had apparently been quiet. But kids say the darndest things -- or reveal the kind-of family secrets. Rossi's 14-year-old grandson wrote a newspaper story on his grandfather's nocturnal habits last month. The elder man's unusual sleeping routine first became public after the article's appearance in his teenager grandson's school newspaper.
So what's the story behind the story? It all goes back to a promise between friends. The two men made a pact many years ago: Whomever passed away first would purchase the coffin for the friend deceased. As it turned out, Zeli Rossi became the accidental recipient of a casket nearly three decades ago -- in 1983, after his friend received incorrect information that Rossi had been involved in a fatal car crash. In reality Zeli Rossi was alive and well. But it was just five years later the man purchased a coffin for his friend who passed away in 1988. Since that time, Rossi has slept in the casket purchased for him, once a week for the past 23 years, in honor of his friend's memory.
For those whom believe nothing in life is guaranteed, Zeli Rossi's tribute to his friend may prove the exception: The Brazilian is probably the least likely candidate to ever wake at his own funeral and die from a heart attack like the 49-year-old Russian woman who died in a coffin -- a second time according to family and friends -- less than two months ago. In June, the woman from Russia awoke to what became a fatal shock after finding herself mistakenly placed in a casket while still alive, ready to be buried after a funeral service.
There is at least one perk to having prior experience of lying in a casket. Nothing could shock you to death.