You Can't Take It With You

I was reading the sample ebook of READY PLAYER ONE on my nook this morning, and I ran across a phrase you see pretty often. "You can't take it with you." A few weeks ago I was editing the crypt scene in PRINCE OF CATS. Traditional royal burial of millennia past where they were given all the goods they needed for the afterlife. Seeds, farming equipment, fine silks, jewelry, etc etc.

And it made me think. What if you can take it with you. Think of all the different ways people have been buried. What if that burial is a portal to the next stage of existence and what you're buried with is all that goes with you. There would be people that would have control of all the food because they came through with the tools and the seed necessary to farm. There'd be others that would come through with armor and swords and what not. Other people that come through with valuable gems and jewelry, whatever other treasures buried with them.

How would you feel if you were some schmuck that showed up in the new world and all you had with you was a lame blue suit?