An Evening with the Pope's Peeps

Not too long ago I made the decision to go back to church. What, me in church? Yeah, you heard it right. I may be morally bankrupt, have the mouth of a sailor, drink like a pirate (okay, more like a Dorothy Parker… you remember her, the poet who suffered from love and loss and a horrible champagne addiction… I drink like her), but every now and then I get this spiritual awakening in me. Like perhaps there is a God. And even though God most likely exists outside the bounds of organized religion, maybe it is in religious metaphor that we can find that understanding, that kinship I suppose.

Don’t worry. I won’t get too deep here.

Since I’ve made this decision, I have gone all of one time. Just one time, you ask? Don’t judge me! It isn’t my fault that church people decide to hold services on Sunday morning, the one morning where I am usually incredibly hung over. Just getting out of bed to take a piss makes my whole body ache. Imagine what a room full of singing people and screaming children would do to me. I would lose it, maybe beat a kid over the head with a hymnal, maybe chuck a bible at some old lady who was singing too loudly, maybe use the pew as a makeshift bed. Anything could happen.

The Catholics, however, they understand this. Sure they don’t have the whole animated sermons, people screaming ‘amen’ randomly, choirs with synchronized dancing. But what they do have is Saturday evening services. Ah, thank you everyone in Ireland. Thank you for being liquored up enough to convince the pope that Sundays were not going to work for drunk people. I owe you. All of you.

So Saturday it was. I didn’t want to go it alone so after a little cajoling, I was able to drag Spitfire with me. She’s a natural born church girl so convincing her was easy. She truly loves God and Jesus. Where I approach religion warily (I have reasons for this), poke at it philosophically, search inward, and then run for the hills, she dives in head first, singing halleluiah, with no trace of doubt or suspicion. It’s part of why I love her.

We decided to sit in the very back of the church at the edge of the aisle, near the exit doors. This was in case we needed a quick exit. Usually Catholics are formal in their preaching, sticking to reading passages and doing a lot of Latin crap I never understand. But you need to play church safe. What if the priest wants to start lecturing us on premarital sex and the importance of family values? Yawn. Time to leave. Plus in the past I have heard everything from praying over Fruit Loops (yeah, I guess God can help in all your cereal dilemmas) to demons living in Harry Potter books (at least they have good taste in children’s literature). In other words, I have been traumatized enough to make sure I always have an escape route.

First thing I noticed when we got there was the amount of children running around. At least five per family. Whoa! How can these people afford this? How do they sleep? Why are they torturing themselves? Hey, every Catholic in the world, your rhythm method is not working. Wrap it up and do 100 Hail Mary’s. You’ll thank me, I promise.

And it isn’t that I dislike children. It’s just that they remind me of very tiny schizophrenic adults with zero social skills. I mean, if I started running through the aisles with my hands down my pants screaming, “I’m peeing myself!!” everyone would be appalled. I’d get kicked out, possibly arrested. Little Sammy does it and all the women coo over how cute he is. He’s not cute! He’s pissing all over the church!

Then came the eating Jesus part. Communion. I actually like communion. Everyone is quiet and reflective. The gesture and symbolism is quite beautiful; death and sacrifice are always the best part of a hero’s journey. And the fact that there is a physical ritual that produces a spiritual connection feels ancient to me.

But the Catholics do the one thing that terrifies any decent germaphobe. They drink out of the same cup. Same cup!! Okay, I’d have to have a game plan if I were one of them. Maybe turn the cup to the opposite side, the spot no one else drank from. No! You can’t even do that!! Why, you ask? Because the crazy cup guy has a white cloth that he uses to smear the germs all around the edge. There is no safe spot! All I could do is watch in horror as everyone received herpes and the flu. (shivers)

Finally, the Catholics do a lot of kneeling, then standing, then sitting, then kneeling again. I guess this is fine but I never knew when it was going to happen. All of a sudden the entire church was standing. Did I miss something? Was there a secret code word that caused this? It’s as if they were the Borg, locked into a collective just knowing when to do something. Which meant I was the last one to do anything. Oh, shit! We’re supposed to stand! Holy crap! We need to kneel! What the hell? We need to stand up!  After half an hour I was exhausted. I finally gave up and just sat there with an ‘I am Lutheran’ look on my face. Resistance was not futile after all.

Anyways, we made it out alive. And if I find a church that understands my drinking schedule, isn’t full of a bunch of white people and their bazillion children, doesn’t pass out herpes and small pox, and doesn’t speak a secret language, I am totally down with trying it out. I feel God and I would get along fabulously.

Post Script: I realize this has nothing to do with men or dating or drinking. Why? Because I like throwing you a fucking curve ball, that’s why. Want men, drinking and dating updates? Fine!

Men – I pissed off Wil Wheaton by being drunk and jumping to conclusions. I made up for it with my super cute sad face and sex, the apology tools of every smart female.

Drinking – I drank a shit ton this weekend. A. Shit. Ton.

Dating – I went on a date, ate sushi, and made a man shower with me just to prove how ridiculous I look wet. Boom!