hauntedheadnc
08-27-2006, 02:24 AM
Here it is Saturday night and I am dearly looking forward to tomorrow. I'll get up early and put on nice clothes, and drive the ten miles to my parents' house, where I'll ride with my father the ten miles back into town for a hearty breakfast of high-quality grease (Bojangle's biscuits boast the highest quality grease in the world -- empires have fallen for the love of grease that is less tasty than these biscuits), and then lay down for a nap until it's time to go to...
...church.
Yes, church. I can't wait!
I love going to church for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is that I get to spend some time with my parents. But it's what's inside the church doors that's really special.
First off, we attend a tiny little Southern Baptist church in the middle of nowhere that attracts maybe 20 worshipers on a normal Sunday or 30 on a busy Sunday. We arrive and sit around in the parking lot for a while, while other cars show up. There are always a few already there because some folks come for Sunday school, and after you get antsy from waiting, you just go ahead and go on into the sanctuary. This is where the adult Sunday school is held because some of the members are too old to climb the single step that leads to the pulpit and the offices behind.
So, you get to hear something like this.
"And... if we.... study... the... message.... of the... Gospel... of... John... we... conclude... that..."
And so on. This is because the lady who teaches the adult Sunday school is not one of the world's great public speakers. Also, though she's nice as she can possibly be, her brain seems to operate on some sort of tape delay. She also speaks in a drone that sets your fillings to rattling.
This is only a sign of the treat that lies in store for you.
My family takes its seat in our customary pew, right by a stained glass window depicting the Last Supper. These windows are not works of art by any stretch of the imagination, and in the window by which we sit, it looks for all the world as though Jesus and the Disciples are eating baked potatoes.
Moving on, we come to the real meat of the service. The choir. On an average Sunday, it consists of four people who are up there out of a sense of duty, not because they have any sort of musical talent. On the other hand, the most boisterous voice up there belongs to Viola, who believes in her heart that she is up there because she has musical talent. Scads of it. Bales of it. To the rest of us though, she sounds just a bit like a Southern Edith Bunker with a cold.
While Viola sings the hits, my parents and I cannot make eye contact, and if we happen to do so by mistake we have to look away quickly, because that's just the kind of polite Southerners we are. We're so polite that we've taken to calling the whole affair the 'Viola Variety Hour' while suppressing snickers. It's worst for my mother who, because of several eye surgeries due to her diabetes, cannot laugh without crying. From time to time you see her dabbing stealthily at her eyes as though she is overcome by the Spirit.
Then comes the message, as delivered by an 80-something-year-old preacher who was an undertaker in his youth, and who works autopsy analogies into his sermon at every available opportunity. Also, if appropriate, he mentions the mechanics of undertaking, and thus one Sunday we learned how to intubate a corpse so you can drain the fluids out. Last Sunday, in a sermon about the nature of heaven, and how there will be no more pain or disease there, he also mentioned that he once popped a cyst on his hand several years ago and about how now it acts up whenever rain is imminent.
While the message is being delivered, there's an elderly couple in the back who always brings their granddaughter to church. Either this young girl suffers from one doozy of a case of ADHD, or else she takes instructions beamed in from Mission Control and from nobody else. She shrieks. She jumps. And if we could put her on a treadmill hooked up to the power grid, she runs back and forth so much that we could power the entire Asheville-Hendersonville metro area for a year.
Preacher: And I remember when I was working as an undertaker to put myself through seminary that...
Little Girl: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (thumpthumpthumpthumpBANG)
Preacher: And you sort of had to work those tubes so that you wouldn't get any blockages because then it would back up and...
Little Girl: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (BANGthumpthumpthumpthump)
Preacher: And those kidneys are slippery little things!
Little Girl: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (thumpthumpthumpthumpBANG)
The bangs are typically caused by the little girl running fill tilt into a wall or the edge of the pew. By the end of it you're praying, Please, Lord -- a tranquilizer gun, a net, and a steamer trunk. That's all I ask.
And needless to say, the entire proceedings are watched over by the benevolent eyes of Jesus as depicted in a massive velveteen tapestry of the Last Supper, hanging on the wall behind the choir. It's the size of a living room rug, and is so ugly that the Constitution should be amended to specifically prohibit it. Take it to any of the world's great flea markets and offer it for sale, and they'll chase you out with guns and dogs. Such is the ugliness of this tapestry.
When all is said and done, my parents and I go out for chicken. And thus ends the most entertaining hour of my week. Pound for pound, nothing else compares.
...church.
Yes, church. I can't wait!
I love going to church for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is that I get to spend some time with my parents. But it's what's inside the church doors that's really special.
First off, we attend a tiny little Southern Baptist church in the middle of nowhere that attracts maybe 20 worshipers on a normal Sunday or 30 on a busy Sunday. We arrive and sit around in the parking lot for a while, while other cars show up. There are always a few already there because some folks come for Sunday school, and after you get antsy from waiting, you just go ahead and go on into the sanctuary. This is where the adult Sunday school is held because some of the members are too old to climb the single step that leads to the pulpit and the offices behind.
So, you get to hear something like this.
"And... if we.... study... the... message.... of the... Gospel... of... John... we... conclude... that..."
And so on. This is because the lady who teaches the adult Sunday school is not one of the world's great public speakers. Also, though she's nice as she can possibly be, her brain seems to operate on some sort of tape delay. She also speaks in a drone that sets your fillings to rattling.
This is only a sign of the treat that lies in store for you.
My family takes its seat in our customary pew, right by a stained glass window depicting the Last Supper. These windows are not works of art by any stretch of the imagination, and in the window by which we sit, it looks for all the world as though Jesus and the Disciples are eating baked potatoes.
Moving on, we come to the real meat of the service. The choir. On an average Sunday, it consists of four people who are up there out of a sense of duty, not because they have any sort of musical talent. On the other hand, the most boisterous voice up there belongs to Viola, who believes in her heart that she is up there because she has musical talent. Scads of it. Bales of it. To the rest of us though, she sounds just a bit like a Southern Edith Bunker with a cold.
While Viola sings the hits, my parents and I cannot make eye contact, and if we happen to do so by mistake we have to look away quickly, because that's just the kind of polite Southerners we are. We're so polite that we've taken to calling the whole affair the 'Viola Variety Hour' while suppressing snickers. It's worst for my mother who, because of several eye surgeries due to her diabetes, cannot laugh without crying. From time to time you see her dabbing stealthily at her eyes as though she is overcome by the Spirit.
Then comes the message, as delivered by an 80-something-year-old preacher who was an undertaker in his youth, and who works autopsy analogies into his sermon at every available opportunity. Also, if appropriate, he mentions the mechanics of undertaking, and thus one Sunday we learned how to intubate a corpse so you can drain the fluids out. Last Sunday, in a sermon about the nature of heaven, and how there will be no more pain or disease there, he also mentioned that he once popped a cyst on his hand several years ago and about how now it acts up whenever rain is imminent.
While the message is being delivered, there's an elderly couple in the back who always brings their granddaughter to church. Either this young girl suffers from one doozy of a case of ADHD, or else she takes instructions beamed in from Mission Control and from nobody else. She shrieks. She jumps. And if we could put her on a treadmill hooked up to the power grid, she runs back and forth so much that we could power the entire Asheville-Hendersonville metro area for a year.
Preacher: And I remember when I was working as an undertaker to put myself through seminary that...
Little Girl: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (thumpthumpthumpthumpBANG)
Preacher: And you sort of had to work those tubes so that you wouldn't get any blockages because then it would back up and...
Little Girl: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (BANGthumpthumpthumpthump)
Preacher: And those kidneys are slippery little things!
Little Girl: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (thumpthumpthumpthumpBANG)
The bangs are typically caused by the little girl running fill tilt into a wall or the edge of the pew. By the end of it you're praying, Please, Lord -- a tranquilizer gun, a net, and a steamer trunk. That's all I ask.
And needless to say, the entire proceedings are watched over by the benevolent eyes of Jesus as depicted in a massive velveteen tapestry of the Last Supper, hanging on the wall behind the choir. It's the size of a living room rug, and is so ugly that the Constitution should be amended to specifically prohibit it. Take it to any of the world's great flea markets and offer it for sale, and they'll chase you out with guns and dogs. Such is the ugliness of this tapestry.
When all is said and done, my parents and I go out for chicken. And thus ends the most entertaining hour of my week. Pound for pound, nothing else compares.