playgroupsarenoplaceforchildren

It’s not an exaggeration to say that I am a magnet for Christians.  They LOVE me.   Really, I don’t know why I seem to attract so many Christians, but seriously, they swarm me.  Where ever I go, I always somehow seem to end up talking to someone who really loves Jesus and wants to talk to me about it.  Possibly I have that Catholic look and seem to be in need of conversion or maybe I just have an aura around me that screams “She-ah NEEDS-ah Jesus-ah!”

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Jesus, He’s one righteous dude.  I’m just private about my beliefs and don’t feel comfortable openly talking about God, Jesus, church, or anything dealing with religion.  I struggle mightily with my beliefs and the Bible, but I have the utmost respect for those who are dedicated to their faith, whatever their faith may be.

Something that I’ve learned in the my years living in the south, is that one of the first questions someone asks you upon meeting is, “Where do you go to church?”  At first, I found it quite offensive and intrusive.  Where I’m from, the Midwest, it’s just not something you ask, at least not when you’re first meeting a person.  Religion was always a topic reserved for people that you were very close to and not something to discuss with random strangers.

I’ve grown accustomed to the question and even expect it now.  I no longer stammer awkwardly trying to come up with an answer that doesn’t make Tate and I look like devil worshipping heathens.  Now I’m prepared and typically fib, just slightly, which is wholly different from outright lying.  I tell people that we are Catholic and just haven’t found the right church yet.  The truth is actually that we attended one church since moving to Tennessee and didn’t like it AT ALL and on top of not liking it (AT ALL), Tate and I had to coax our wiggly children into submission with crayons, tractors, cookies and half-nelsons for the hour long mass.  I always make sure to mention when I’m asked about my church attendance, that I attend Bible study every week, though I leave out the part about my initial reason for attending being the free childcare.  (It bears repeating:  FREE CHILDCARE.)

Today at the grocery store I must have looked particularly in need of some Christian intervention.  The teenage clerk, without even saying “hello” asked me, “Did you go to church today?”

Um.  This bears repeating, too.  The clerk?  As in the cashier, the employee of the store, also a teenager, asked me if I’d been to church today.  Which I should mention is variant of the regular, expected question, “Where do you go to church?”  This unexpected alteration was quite disconcerting and really caught me off guard.

“No,”  I replied, not feeling like I really owed this kid any sort of explanation.  Though I’ll tell you the reason that we didn’t attend church today was because Tate and I stayed out until almost 1 AM the night before, cussing and drinking, Tate was hungover as all get out, I was tired, and we had never even planned to attend church anyway.   So there!  Ha!

And that’s when the teenage clerk asked (you are SO not going to believe this), he asked, “Why not?”

Oh my freaking hell, he asked “Why not?!?!?”  Who does that??

I wish I was one of those really quick witted people that can come up with retorts on the fly, but I was flabbergasted!  My reply was lame.  “Because,”  I said with an irritated glare.

Oooh, I really showed him.

Except that I didn’t, because he wasn’t done with his line of questioning yet.

“What?  You just didn’t get up in time?”  he asked, completely clueless to the lasers shooting out of my eyes into his forehead.

I swear it just might be easier to start going to church.

After all the hard work and fretting over selling all my baby items in a garage sale a few weeks ago, the sale itself was a colossal bust.

It was such a miserable failure, that we ended up having the garage sale AGAIN this past Saturday also.

Prior to the first garage sale, Tate and I were certain that we were going to become members of the nouveau riche with the millions of dollars we were going to make.  People were going to see our newly acquired vast wealth with our extended holidays to Malta, our Ferrari’s, and our 64,000 square foot homes.  The other nouveau riche would whisper behind our backs at posh parties in the Hamptons, “how do you think they made their money?  Was it in the stock market?”  Their in-the-know nouveau riche friends would say, “No!  Didn’t you hear?  They made all their money in selling baby items at a garage sale.  Their baby swing sold for a cool 3.2 mil.”

Oh how we’d foolishly spent the money in our heads.

The dismal failure of our garage sale looked like this:  ONLY about 4 or 5 of Carson’s baby clothes sold at our first sale.  Not even one of Ella’s baby clothes sold, nobody even LOOKED at them.  Our only “big ticket” baby item to sell was our changing table.  Our swing?  Our baby papasan?  Our bouncy seat?  Our exersaucer?  Our high chair?  NOT SOLD.   We ended up making about $200, which is nothing to sneeze at, but it certainly isn’t going to buy a 300 ft. yacht.

So this past weekend we decided to have another sale.    My expectations were far less grand than the previous weeks.  I’d be happy to simply GET RID of all the stuff, I was willing to let the stuff go for far less than I’d originally intended.  And thank goodness I had low expectations.

I did sell a good chunk of Carson’s clothes, though I still have two completely full totes of his clothes.  Again, NOT ONE of Ella’s baby clothes sold, nor did anyone even look at them.  The only other baby item to sell was the high chair.  We made $50, not even enough to buy a week’s worth of groceries.

If I were the religious type, I’d think Jesus Himself was trying to tell us something.  “My child!  Stop being greedy.  Fulfillment cannot be found in riches.  Also, you’re going to need your baby girl clothes,” He said with a raise of his eyebrows and a smirk.

Have you ever seen that movie, The Entity?  That is one scary movie right there, one that I should never, ever have watched years ago.  Having a vivid imagination and being one who might occasionally overreact, I was certain that the rumbling I felt in my bed at 5:40 AM last Friday was definitely an evil ghost who’d come to get me.

Luckily for me it was JUST an earthquake. 

First I heard a very odd noise coming from the baby monitor, a noise that certainly wasn’t my children, but an eerie low frequency NON-HUMAN sounding something.  Obviously when I put all the facts together moments after the rumbling that fully awakened me, I positively KNEW that I was living with a ghost (or ghosts plural.)

I immediately turned on every light, running frantically away from my bedroom and the ghost or ghosts plural.  Finding my cell phone, I fumbled to find Tate’s number and call him.  He’s a man!  He could help beat the ghosts!  Or something.

When I finally got ahold of Tate seconds later, I explained the situation and my fear of our unwelcome guests ghost(s). 

“There was this rumbling that started at the bottom of the bed!  And!  I could hear it over the baby monitor!  And!!!  I could feel an energy in the room.  We have an infestation of ghosts!  I know we do, I just know it.  I’m not crazy, Tate.”

After repeating the above sentences about ten times to REALLY!  GET!  MY!  POINT!  ACROSS!, Tate asked if I had considered that it might be an earthquake.

I, obviously, thought that the possibility of an earthquake was downright WACKO.  A ghost or ghosts plural was a much more viable possibility.

But apparently, as it turns out, it was indeed an earthquake–an earthquake I BARELY survived. 

I also narrowly escaped death once before when I was woken up by an earthquake in Knoxville.  Now I can say I’ve survived TWO earthquakes and that makes me, like, really cool. 

Guess who has Internet access and is gloriously happy about it!?!?!  I’ll give you three guesses, but the first two don’t count….

That’s right, genius!  ME!

(And it’s not even stolen, which makes me a little sad because that would have been a far more exciting story to tell.)

Anyway.

I would like to take this time to give myself a swift kick in the arse since I packed away my camera at the bottom of a tote and couldn’t take pictures of a few of the things I saw on the drive, because BOY OH BOY did they make me chuckle.  Sadly, this would have been a much better post with pictures.  It’s the kind of thing that it’s funny if you’re there, but maybe not so much when you are just reading about it.

Anyway.

There was a sign along I-65 in Alabama that said, and I’m NOT EVEN LYING, “Go to church or the devil will get you.”  This very helpful message was accompanied by the picture of the devil that looked suspiciously like the devil from those cans of icky deviled ham.  Um?  Can you say COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT!?  I say that copyright infringement yields a far worse fate than not going to church.  I suspect Jesus would agree with me.

Another sign that I saw on I-65, but this time in Kentucky, and I’m still NOT LYING said, “Jim Bob’s B00bie Bonanza next exit.”  Okay, it didn’t actually say “Bonanza,” but I can’t recall exactly what it did say.  That’s not even the point, though.  The word “b00bie” was on a billboard and that’s some funny stuff right there.  I was going to stop the car and have Tate take a picture of me and the kids in front of Jim Bob’s B00bie Bonanza because that would have been KLASSY.

Speaking of adult entertainment, there sure is a plethora of A*DULT BOOKSTORES! and A*DULT VIDEOS! too choose from along this nation’s interstate system.  In one particularly thick patch of A*DULT ENTERTAINMENT offerings I saw a sign on the left-hand side of the road that said, “Turn here for all your A*DULT ENTERTAINMENT needs!”  On the other side of the road, just opposite this sign was a message warning of eternal damnation, “You pay for porn in HELL.”

Wooooooooooow.  That’s quite a deterrent.

See how this post would have been much better with pictures??  Meh.  Sorry.

Exciting update….here’s a link to another blog that posted a picture of the church/devil sign!!  (Thank you Google.  I love you.)

Dear Jesus,

On today, your most holy of all days, I’m so sorry for what I’m going to do. See, HBO has scheduled the last NINE episodes of The Sopranos to begin this evening. I know that it is not a very religimical show to be obsessed with watch. My most pure of hearts knows that it is a poor choice of programs to watch on Easter.

It seems wrong to be excited to find out what has been happening with a set of characters whose job it is to intimidate, murder, watch strippers, screw, and lie. The characters are supposed to be Catholic, but I doubt that they take Easter off from their crooked and evil ways. I should probably record the show and watch any day but Easter, but I DON’T THINK I CAN WAIT. It’s wrong and unholy, but I heart The Sopranos.

It’s the final season, Jesus. Please forgive me for my inability to sacrifice. I mean absolutely no disrespect to your Big Day.

I promise to pray right after the show ends. And I won’t even cuss this whole upcoming week. Well, I’ll try not to cuss this week. I definitely will try to do something really nice for someone this week. That is as long as I’m in the mood for being nice.

Amen.