Thursday, December 27, 2001

The beating that I was tempted to deliver Christmas Eve in church would have caused more problems than it would have been worth. Arriving an hour early for the children’s mass because Katie was singing in the choir placed us in on the opposite end of the biggest a-hole seat saver I have ever encountered. Normally I wouldn’t get very excited because I have no time to become concerned about the politics of church seating but this guy put ME in a position to do his dirty work. Because I was on the outside end, I had to tell at least forty people “I’m not sure how many of those seats are saved; you need to ask that gentleman on the opposite isle. Merry Christmas.” I dropped the friendly greeting after the first three and near the end I was almost spitting. So it’s now five after four and the crowd standing against the wall is three deep but our pew has nine open seats with Max running laps up and back. The a-hole-seat-saver likes this because it makes it look like the seats are ours. At this point, I have eighty-year-old blind women asking if I could spare half a seat to relieve their severe sciatica when in strolls this guys collection of slacker relatives. All smiles as they break through the crowd and parade to their reserved seating. I could have brought down the house with a little help from a Christmas baseball bat. Unfortunately Liza is very in to this whole “spirit of Christmas “ thing so the beating would have cause some friction at home. You might think that I would be entitled to some holiday jail time but I am sure I would have at least a hundred witnessed that would swear that all of those morons fell on their way into the parish. The beating fantasies kept me entertained between Katie’s songs until I started to eaves drop on the people around me. I heard one gentleman explaining to his family in a voice loud enough for me to hear about “these people that only show up on holidays”. I will leave you with the response I constructed in my head: Listen you cranky old asshole, I don’t really want to be here but the rest of my family are active members of this church. If you are so smart, why don’t you just stay home on these days when the bad people invade your sanctuary? Oh, I’m sorry; you don’t have anything else to do. Keep your Christmas cookie hole shut for an hour and enjoy my child’s singing or your next after I finish my pew mates. 12:00:00 AM    says you