The Other Church

Last week we decided to go to the other Catholic church in town. I'm not entirely sure why, but I just go with the flow when it comes to things churchly.

We got there and the one nice thing was that the priest doesn't have a thick, gooey accent straight out of the Eastern Bloc. I could actually understand what he was saying. I didn't listen, but that's completely beside the point... I could have listened. He also had nice hair. It was a little long, so from a distance it looked decidedly like a fuzzy helmet, but it looked fine up close.

Of course, being church, those were about the only positives to me.

The first thing I noticed is that this priest (do I have to capitalize "priest?" I guess since I never bother capitalizing "god," that's sort of a moot point. Like they're going to add another year on to my life sentence in hell for disobeying the style guide.) sings every damn verse of the hymns. Every. Verse. Come on dammit, the other church does one and three. It's a time saver, let's get with the program here.

There was another thing that bothered the crap out of me about the church music. They did those songs. The ones where they pick a psalm, throw some organ in the background, and slap some arbitrary notes to the words. Seriously? It sounds like someone is reading the newspaper to song. It's stupid. Stop butchering the last movement of Beethoven's 9th like that. It's criminal. God should make you weep nothing but grapefruit juice for perpetrating that on us.

Behind me was what I like to call a "rusher." One of those people that is at least two words ahead whenever there's a group prayer or singing going on. I don't know the words to this stuff really well and that dude was not helping. Recite and sing at the correct tempo, jerkoff. No one is proud of you because you finished first.

Also at this church was "Farting Guy." I call him that because once, in church, this guy was sitting next to us and letting them rip. This only happened once, ten years ago, but you don't forget stuff like that. Yet another reason to stick with the old church.

Overall mass lasted only marginally longer than the other church, but if we could move to the verse one and three system we could get out of there earlier and I would consider that church instead, regardless of the perils of "Farting Guy."

After mass, they had a thing for the kids which included an "epiphany cake." This is where you take a cake and put something inside like a bean and whoever gets the bean gets to wear a crown. I've always had issues with the epiphany cake and its potential to cause dental damage to an overzealous eater. This time, however, they put a little (but large enough to be an awesome choking hazard), plastic baby Jesus inside.

Really?

It's lucky parents were they to dig through their child's slice before they dug in. I'm sure "asphyxiation by baby jeebus" would be a real hoot down at the coroner's office.

I'm not sure which church to go to now. Maybe I should come up with a third offering for town. I'll have to work on the plans for that. I'll let you know when they're done.

 

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