Although it has long been a tradition to sound Taps at a military funeral, it wasn’t a right guaranteed by law until Congress included it as a provision of the Defense Authorization Act in October of 2000. The trouble is, there are only about 500 military buglers on active duty in the United States on any given day—and about 1,800 military funeral-eligible service veterans die each day. Even if one assumes that only half of those eligible opt for the military funeral, it still leaves the bereaved over 600 buglers short.

The standard solution—the only alternative, really—has been to play Taps on a boom box when no military bugler was available. Although this falls within the limit of what the law allows, it’s a distant second to the real McCoy in terms of preference.

Fast forward to the present, where the folks at S & D Consulting claim to have built a better mousetrap, to so speak. Called the Ceremonial Bugle, it’s a $525 package consisting of a digital recording device that plays Taps from its inconspicuous vantage point inside the accompanying bugle’s bell. The Ceremonial Bugle even gives the user a five-second grace period between the time they activate it and the music begins, giving them time to raise the false instrument to their lips and perpetrate what is at best a deception, and at worst, a farce. The online instructions don’t say anything about puffing out one’s cheeks to complete the illusion, so I’m assuming it’s at each “musician’s” discretion.