Daily Diatribes

This will come as no surprise, but I have a hard time behaving in Mass. I wiggle, I whisper, I openly stare at women who are wearing inappropriate clothing in the Lord’s House; I am like a giant three year old. I need to bring crayons and a coloring book with me to avoid distracting those who are there to worship the Lord because I am that much of a maniac. I love God as much as the next person, but with my limited attention span, it’s hard to sit through a whole hour of church! It’s one of the reasons I like being Catholic. Just when I’m starting to get bored, it’s time to stand up or sit down or kneel. Catholocism is the Jane Fonda of Christian religions.

One of the perks of being Catholic is Saturday night services and last night at 4:30, we arranged ourselves in the usual pew. We were behind a very nice man/boy who has an intellectual disability. That was a politically correct way to say it, right? Anyway, he is very sweet and friendly and he always speaks to my children. I like to sit near him because I feel he has a special relationship with God. And sitting near him during Pentecost seemed like a good way to get some extra Brownie points with the Lord. I’m always looking for a way to avoid my inevitable descent into Hell. So Pentecost….it’s when the Holy Spirit came to the disciples as they were huddled together fearfully, not sure what to do now that Jesus was gone. The Holy Spirit came in the form of a wind and and blew over them and they were inspired to go forth and preach the Gospel. It’s fitting that it was Pentecost and that we were sitting near the very nice man because the two juxtaposed nicely.

As a matter of fact, he seemed to be internalizing the Gospel, because I hadn’t been sitting there long, when a most malodorous smell assailed my nostrils. The mental cogs started turning and I categorized the offensive odor as a flatulent episode. And it was coming from the pew in front of me, the pew whose sole occupant was the very nice disabled man. He did not move or fidget; he just beamed angelically at the altar. And yet I knew, like a certain BP oil rig, that he was spewing foul gas into the environment. I looked at my family, but no one seemed affected but me. I waited for the goddess to shriek out “MOMMY….WHAT STINKS???” but she was whispering with Abby (church misbehavior is a family tradition). I decided either it didn’t smell as bad as I thought it did or that everyone else had a stuffy nose and therefore could not process the odor. I tried to turn my attention back to the Mass, I really did, but I kept getting distracted by people’s shoes. There are some UGLY shoes in the world and they seem to come out in full force at church!!

A few minutes later, however, the odor wafted over me again. This time Stalin looked at me accusingly and hissed “Was that YOU?”

Now reader, I was truly hurt. Ok, fine, I misbehave in church. Your average toddler is better behaved than me. But I have SOME class!! If I feel the urge to release pent up anal air, I will absent myself to the bathroom to do so. I will not disrupt the prayerful state so many manage to achieve during church with my horrendous bodily smells. I’m not saying I never pass gas; oh no, as a woman of a certain age, it’s an inevitable fact of life. I’m not even denying that occasionally I like to rip a really good one to horrify my family. But NEVER in church!! I don’t have many standards, but that certainly ranks up there at the top!!

“NO,” I hissed back. We stared at each other for a moment, eyes watering, and then both looked away before we exploded into gales of laughter. What elevated this from a “guy farted in church” story to a tale worthy of Saturday Night Live was the fact that it was Pentecost. Every reading was about Holy Wind. The entire Homily was about wind. The guy in front of us was BREAKING WIND!!! Do you see the humor???

The stench was bad, I’m not gonna lie. I have a strong stomach, but this was not only relentless, it was most foul. I kept holding my breath, hoping he would stop, but no such luck. And during the homily, Father kept inviting us to “INHALE” the Holy Spirit. There was NO WAY I was going to inhale!! I was doing everything I could do to AVOID inhaling the wind around me!! Because it was most UNHOLY!!!

I made it through Mass without saying anything out loud. I didn’t throw up in the pew. I didn’t run screaming from the church. I sat stoically and accepted it as my penance for being a bad person. I didn’t blame the man; sometimes you win, sometimes the beans win. It’s the human condition. But next week, I plan to sit on the other side of church from him. Just in case!

Recently some Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door. I cowered in my kitchen, trapped behind my counter, afraid to move because I didn’t want to be subjected to a sermon about my salvation. But even as I cowered, I admired their dedication to their cause. Who else gives up a Sunday afternoon to drive around and leaflet unsuspecting, Godless heathens in their homes? I don’t agree with their message, which states that only 144,000 chosen people will be going up to Heaven. Let’s face it, I have ZERO chance of being among the chosen and the Jehovah’s Witnesses should know this, being devoutly tuned in to the Big Guy’s plan. Still, I admired their persistence. They continued knocking on my door long after a normal person would have given up and they even left me a pamphlet depicting a happy African American couple frolicking with a moose and picking pumpkins. And it is written that “The negro shall frolic with the moose and he shall have an abundance of pumpkins to store up in Heaven…” Bible 101; everyone knows that verse!!!

So their dedication to their cause got me thinking about my own dedication, or lack thereof, and I decided to join a ministry right then and there. I browsed the internet, looking for a ministry to call my own. I checked out the Alien Resistance Ministries, which is dedicated to spreading the word of God to those in UFO cults. Since I was personally abducted by aliens last year and subjected to a thorough probing, I didn’t think this was the right ministry for me; especially since I birthed that alien baby that was beamed up to the mother ship right after it was born. I looked into the Mime ministry but I doubt seriously I could keep my mouth shut long enough to successfully pantomime a message to anyone. I really think I am a good candidate for the Ministry of Silly Walks, but since they operate out of the UK, and I hate to fly, I crossed it off my list. And it occurred to me I could create my own ministry.

My first thought was to create a ministry to share the word of God through the medium of bathroom graffiti. Many is the time I have been sitting on the potty at the convenience store, pondering a beautiful and uplifting messages about God’s love for me written right there on the wall. Even reading the basic “JESUS LOVES YOU” has deeper meaning for me when it is scribbled on the toilet paper holder at the Chevron station. What better way to make a difference in the world than to arm everyone I know with Sharpies and empower them to go forth and spread the gospel truth of God’s eternal love for humanity by writing it on the walls of toilet stalls??? Here are some sample messages our ministry could share: Flush If You Love Jesus! or Round the Bowl and Down the Hole/Jesus loves you Body and Soul! I feel these inspired words could truly change the lives of those who are struggling with their spirituality. Viewing a message of love and hope in the bathroom of your local truck stop is always uplifting. Together, we can make a difference, one Sharpie at a time!!

But I’m not sure I have the patience to start a ministry like that from scratch. It would take a lot of work, something I’m not necessarily into. I mean, I’d have to raise the money to buy the Sharpies and I’d have to recruit Christians with nice handwriting who aren’t afraid of public bathrooms. Raising the money will be easy. You can always find someone willing to donate money to spread the Good News. The Sharpies will be easy to buy, but the Christians are another thing. Even the most dedicated missionary might flinch when asked to go into the bathroom of the local Handi-Mart to proselytize. Sub-Saharan Africa is not at all frightening to these people because they can get shots for all those potential African diseases, but what shot exists to kill Handi-Mart germs? And I’d have to raise some serious capital in order to have bail money on hand in case my Christians are jailed for defacing public property. Which really wouldn’t be fair because isn’t it better to deface property with an inspirational message versus one like “For a Good Time Call Mandy”? (and no, Peter, I DON’T KNOW Mandy’s number!!!)

Reluctantly, I abandoned my idea and racked my brains for another. This one is kind of lame, but today on my Facebook Page, I wished everyone a Happy Thursday. Which got me thinking about just how disrespected Thursday is as a day of the week. No one ever says “Thank God It’s Thursday!” There’s no celebration when Thursday rolls around, no accolades, it’s just another day. Everybody hates Monday, but at least it inspires some emotion. Wednesday is Hump Day and Sunday is the Sabbath. Saturday is just awesome all the way around because it’s a day of endless possibilities. Even Tuesday gets some respect because it’s at the beginning of the week and people are still getting into their rhythm. But Thursday….Thursday is the Rodney Dangerfield of the week. It gets NO respect. Even in the poem, “Thursday’s Child has far to go…” which means you are out of luck if you’re born on a Thursday! Monday…fair of face! Tuesday…full of grace! Wednesday’s child is full of woe….ok that’s pretty bad, but STILL, Wednesday gets other recognitions!! But poor little Thursday!!!

So I will start a ministry promoting Thursday as the best day of the whole week! My first action will be to lobby to get that awful poem changed. I want the line changed to read “Thursday’s child is NOT a HO!!!” or better yet “Thursday’s child has LOTS OF DOUGH!” or maybe even “Thursday’s child is a worthy foe” but probably I will change it to “Thursday’s child is none too slow!” Regardless, ‘far to go’ is unacceptable. It’s not the image of Thursday we want to project. Thursday is a GOOD weekday. It’s powerful. When you reach Thursday, it means you’re a survivor. You’ve made it past Monday, you’ve coasted over hump day and now you’re on the downhill stretch. Thursday is full of possibilities. It means life is GOOD!! So yeah, Thursday ministries…a real possibility.

Then again, maybe I’ll skip the ministry thing altogether. While those Jehovah’s Witnesses were out witnessing on Sunday, I was hanging out, playing Pogo. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be shallow after all!!

There are lots of reasons for me to seek gainful employment. One reason is money. Napoleon will be going to college next year and I’m thinking he’s not going to be name Fulbright Scholar or anything like that. I suspect we’re going to have to help him pay for it. Also, a job is a good way to keep me from wasting my life on Facebook. I worry sometimes that I will be found dead in front of the computer, and even worse, have posted a low score on Bejeweled Blitz when I’m found. The headline crying “Local Soccer Mom Found Decomposing in Front of Computer; Her Family Didn’t Notice She Was Dead” would be bad enough. A score of less than 10,000 on the screen (probably the causative factor in the unexplained death) would be an insult that would follow me beyond the grave. So death and money are both good reasons to get a job, but ultimately, I need a job because for me, too much time on my hands equals too much thinking, something that is not good for me or for society as a whole.

When my last final was over, I was at a loss. I had three whole days to do with as I pleased, only I didn’t know what to do. I did some laundry. I played some Pogo. I generally goofed off. And then I made the fatal mistake of checking my kid’s grades. You see, in this wonderful age of technology, I can access an online grade book and monitor their progress in school. Before I started back to school, I would haunt the online grade book for hours, pondering their quiz scores, plotting inspirational speeches I could give the children when they came home, so they could improve their academic performances. Of course, these well-intentioned speeches were usually met with sighs of disgust and enough rolling of the eyeballs that the little darlings looked like epileptics, but I felt it was my motherly duty to try and instruct them. But taking four classes last semester put an end to that particular past-time. I was so consumed with my own grades that I didn’t have time to monitor their grades as well.

Imagine my shock, then, when I signed on and saw that Marie Antoinette’s grades were abysmal: 1 A, a couple of B’s AND A D!!! And in Law Academy, no less, an elective course in which she had excelled all year!! Immediately, the adrenaline surged. My heart started pumping, my nostrils flared and my eyes dilated. Because there before me on the computer screen was proof that she was strung out on drugs. I don’t know how I had missed the earlier signs, but the D was all I needed to assure me that she was ingesting mass quantities of illegal substances, possibly from my medicine cabinet.

It’s sad the things this says about me as a mother and as a human being. Normal people don’t look at a grade and assume their child has been sneaking out to meet her pusher by the subdivision sign. Normal people might actually wait until the child gets home and take a good look in her eyes before jumping to that conclusion. I’m sorry, did I say I was normal? Because it never even occurred to me that there was another explanation.

I got up and started pacing nervously, mentally composing my helpful speech. I didn’t want to come on too strong. I wanted to ease into the subject so she wouldn’t shut down. I decided to start with the obvious “Is everything ok honey,” segue into an “I’m worried about you,” and then carefully bring up the subject of drugs. I needed to know what kind and how much she was taking. I needed to know where she was getting them from. I needed to know if she was engaging in any indecent acts to fund her drug habit. And I needed to know why she was taking them and how I had failed as a mother. I pondered all these things as I waited for her to come home. “Stay calm,” I kept telling myself, “Stay calm and don’t scare her.”

Which is why, when she walked in the door, I screamed “YOU HAVE A “D” IN LAW ACADEMY AND WHY ARE YOU TAKING DRUGS?????????” I then fell on her, sobbing hysterically. Ok, that last is maybe a bit of exaggeration, but not much. I was freaked out and just looking at her little face, the face of the baby I had nurtured, the face of my child who was now taking drugs…it was too much to bear. “What’s wrong honey?” I asked plaintively. “Is it because I lose your clothes all the time?? Is it because I’m annoying???? Is that why you’re taking the drugs??”

Naturally, she stared at me like I was insane (which I am), sauntered over to the computer and pulled up her grades. She scanned them cooly and said “This is wrong. This grade is supposed to be a 45 out of 50, not a 4 out of 50. I’ll tell him to fix it tomorrow.”

Abruptly I deflated. ‘Well’, I thought to myself, ‘that was somewhat anticlimactic.’ To MA I said “So you’re not taking drugs?”

“No mother,” she said acidly, “I am NOT taking drugs.”

“Ok, then,” I said cheerfully. “Good job on the grades!!”

And the moral of the story is I need to get a job and spend as much time away from home as possible or I will drive my children right into a drug habit!! Oh, and I guess I need to actually HAVE SOME FAITH IN THEM instead of always assuming the worst!! But it’s in my nature to assume the worst because if the worst happens, I won’t be surprised!!

Ok, I’m not gonna lie, semester almost finished me off! People frequently look at me admiringly and say “I don’t know HOW you do it; you must not sleep at all!!!” and I lower my head and blush modestly. I would never admit that I sleep between 8 and 9 hours EVERY night and still manage to watch every episode of “House”. Sleep is not what has been sacrificed in this scholastic endeavor. No, it would be housework!!

Not that I’ve EVER put much effort into housework. One of the reasons I went back to school in the first place was to get out of doing the housework. I suck at it. I am perfectly content to sit on my butt in front of this computer for 6 to 8 hours a day, stalking people on Facebook and writing the occasional, pithy letter to the editor of the “Birmingham News” regarding some issue which has displeased me. The dust can rise up around me, but as long as I can still see the computer screen, I’m fine. I think it’s reveals a lot about my personality that, when I was in middle school and ordered to memorize a poem of my choosing, I chose “Dust” by Sydney King Russell, a poem which I remember to this day. I will quote it for you:

Agatha Morley all her life
grumbled at dust like a good wife
dust on a table dust on a chair
dust on a mantel she couldn’t bear
she forgave faults in man and child
but a dusty shelf would set her wild
she bore with sin without protest
but dust thoughts preyed upon her rest
Agatha Morley is sleeping sound
six feet under the moldy ground
six feet under the earth she lies
with dust at her feet and dust in her eyes.

Even at the tender age of twelve, I recognized that housework is an exercise in futility. There is always going to be dust, so why bother hauling out a can of Pledge and a cloth??? It’s just gonna get dusty again! Why make the bed? You’re just going to mess it up again?? Why pick up everyone’s crack pipes off the floor….well, you get the idea. Why should I exert myself dusting the house when there are so many other things I’d rather be doing? In the time it takes to clean a bathroom, I can play five or six hands of Canasta on Pogo. Or I can prowl through Facebook, looking for gossip. I don’t need to waste time cleaning. As we used to say when we were kids “God made dirt and dirt don’t hurt!!!” Dirt is practically holy. God might get offended if we disturb the natural order of things and far be it for me to offend God anymore than I already have. Lightning bolts are hurled at me on a daily basis as it is.

So housework ranks pretty close to the bottom in terms of priorities in my life. In fact, I have to laugh when I stay in hotels and people grumble about how dirty their rooms are. Trust me, any bathroom in ANY hotel is going to be cleaner than mine. For example, the maids at the hotel probably clean the toilet more than once a month. They probably actually move things on the counter when they wipe it down, instead of wiping around it. And they actually vacuum every day. These are not activities I pursue on a regular basis. When the toilet bowl begins looking like a petri dish and bacteria are actually reaching up out of the toilet to try and infect us, I might take a swipe at them with the brush. Or I might just ignore them, drop some toilet paper on their germy little heads, and hope that will squash their uprising.

As for vacuuming, well, um…yeah. About vacuuming. Right, so a few weeks ago, the vacuum cleaner wasn’t working…AGAIN! So I decided to fix it. I sat down to examine it and found the roller was being hindered by a large clot of dog hair. So I channeled my inner McGyver, straightened a coat hanger and went to work. I diligently dug out the entire dog hair clot and, in the process, destroyed the motor in the vacuum cleaner head. Apparently it’s bad form to root around inside the vacuum cleaner with a coat hanger. This is why I am going to teach English and not mechanical engineering. Needless to say, the vacuum is back in the shop again, and the part is only going to be $100. And the dog hair is threatening to overtake the house.

So today I am cleaning. In the spirit of spring and in the fear of contracting Cercopithecine herpesvirus 13 from my toilet, I am cleaning. If I get everything done today that I need to, I won’t have to clean again until mid-August!

Thanks for checking in with me; summer semester is going to be lighter, so I hopefully I can catch up on my blog reading and my blog posting!!