Take These Papers, Please

Some men are born to volunteer, some hope to achieve volunteer status, and some have it thrust upon them. Like Tim at Easter Sunday mass.

Since we arrived a bit late, we ended up sitting on folding chairs in the back next to one of the side doors of the church. It was also next to the table holding stacks of the church bulletins.

Toward the end of mass, one of the ushers, an elderly gentleman whose main job seemed to be organizing, rearranging and distributing the bulletins, approached Tim with a speculative gleam in his eye. "Are you double parked?" he slyly asked with a guileless expression pasted on his face.

Caught off guard, Tim blurted out, "No," and then felt the jaws of the trap snap shut.

"Good," the man crowed, stacking both a pile of the bulletins and a pile of some other pamphlet on the corner of the table. "Then you can stand at this door when mass ends and make sure everyone has a bulletin as they leave." Then, he scurried off before Tim could do more than gape at him. Obviously, this was not the first time he had shanghaied an unsuspecting victim.

Tim and I looked at the two piles and spent the next five minutes quietly debating whether he was supposed to give out both items or only the one.

Before our subtle whispered discussion could progress to some not-so-subtle hand gestures, the man returned and proceeded to demonstrate the fine art of bulletin distribution (I guess Tim looked to be in need of remedial instruction.).

As the first few people tried to sneak out a few minutes early, he planted himself in the doorway like a bouncer at Studio 54 in its heyday and demanded they show both the bulletin and the other pamphlet before they were allowed to exit.

A few foolish souls tried to wave him off or bluff their way out, but he wasn't to be denied. No papers, no exit, no exceptions. (A guy with a walker and oxygen tank almost succeeded in his bulletin-free bid for freedom, but apparently the valve on the tank doubles nicely as a paper holder. Who knew?)

After several more minutes of demonstrating the proper technique, the man seemed to feel that Tim was ready to fly solo, and thrust the remaining pile of bulletins into his hands. The other pamphlets he kept for himself, apparently judging that Tim was not yet ready for the challenge of multiple handouts, and moved on to another door where madness reigned and people were leaving in a willy-nilly fashion without those earth-shakingly vital pamphlets (Didn't they know the fate of the free world hung on whether or not they could name all the members of the choir?).

Left to his own devices, Tim tried his best to live up to the gargantuan task he had been assigned. Gamely, he offered the bulletins to each and every departing churchgoer, but it wasn't the same. Like a classroom full of rowdy eight year olds who've just discovered they have a substitute teacher, the congregation surged out the door, hands firmly in their pockets, practically trampling poor Tim in their haste.

As the tide of escapees continued, I began to worry what would happen when bulletin-man returned and found out that Tim had allowed some people to actually leave without the all-important piece of paper.

Would he be forced to confess this sin, perhaps given a penance of forty-five Hail Marys, sixty-two Our Fathers and a few Glory Bes thrown in for good measure? Or maybe he would just be taken out to the parking lot for a lesson in the finer points of body-tackling eighty year olds with canes.

Before we could find out what exactly his punishment would be though, the last person exited, and since our friend was still terrorizing people at the other door, we made good on our escape.

I'm guessing that the next time, Tim will be a bit warier when someone asks him if he is double-parked.

Or Not

My sister-in-law gives up sweets every Lent. Forty days of no chocolate, no cake, co cookies, no candy. Personally, I would rather give up something less necessary, like oxygen, for forty days, and I feel confident that Tim would fully support my choice since he would be the one dealing with a sugar-free me. It would not be pretty. Although it couldn't be much worse than this past Easter weekend when I gave up eating...pretty much everything.

It all started Friday morning when I barely had time to cram half of a bagel down my throat before running out the door. Oh well, maybe we'd have an early lunch.

Or not. Lunch turned out to be a plate of tomatoes and mozzarella at 3:00 while we waited for our hotel rooms to be ready. Oh well, dinner was at seven, so I'd get a nice meal then.

Or not. Turns out our reservation was for seven, but our table wasn't actually ready until 8:30. By that time, I'd eaten enough nuts to keep Bonzo happy for a year and drunk enough club soda to float a battleship.

I barely made it through the appetizer, never mind dinner, and to add insult to injury, they brought over a fabulous (complimentary) chocolate dessert that I couldn't even touch. Oh well, things would be better on Saturday.

Or not. Room service forgot half our order and the luscious-looking muffin that I got turned out to be chock-full-o-coconut! Yuck. What kind of sick, twisted person ruins a lovely little muffin with coconut? Seriously, they should have a warning label on the menu: Caution. Muffins may be hazardous to your taste buds. Oh well, I'd get something to eat once we got to the pool.

Or not. Around noon, we ordered water and fruit plates. Forty minutes passed, and so did a lot of waiters with trays of burgers, sandwiches and fries, but the only fruit we saw during that time was the dreaded coconuts hanging from the trees around us, mocking us as they swayed in the breeze.

At 1:25, we finally had to cancel our order and rush off to keep our 1:30 massage appointments. The waiter apologized profusely, offering to have the plates ready when we returned at 3:00.

Or not. The new waiter didn't seem to have any idea who we were or what arrangements had been made, but he assured us that fruit plates would be no problem.

Yeah. We fell for that one before. He had five minutes before we headed to Mickey D's. Maybe there we could get a few measly berries and some melon with our Big Macs.

We did get our fruit, along a side of rain, but dinner was only a few hours away and would be good.

Or not. Oh, the actual food wasn't bad, but the restaurant had an...odor...so that it was sort of like eating in the bottom of an old, wet sneaker. Oh well, Sunday would be better.

Or not. Sunday morning, we decided to go to mass at the church twenty minutes away where my mom was in the choir. Opting to skip the coconut muffins, we decided to grab some breakfast along the way in one of the many little towns or strip malls we would pass.

Unfortunately, it was pouring rain and we missed a turn, so we needed up taking the interstate. Not a lot of places to eat there. Oh well, we'd grab a bite somewhere near the church.

Or not. Turns out it took us twice as long to get there due to the rain, and there wasn't any place near the church. Easter Sunday breakfast turned out to be a pack of peanut butter crackers from my purse and two day old water from the bottle I left in the cup holder.

Fortunately, through all these trials and tribulations, I managed to remain sweet, pleasant and even tempered.

Or not.

When Life Hands You Lemons

Flying these days is like playing the slots in Vegas. You take your seat hoping for cherries, but you know the odds are against you and it's usually not a surprise when you end up with lemons instead.

And boy, have I gotten some big, old lemons the last few times I've flown down to Florida.

There was the woman with the dog which she smuggled on board (did the TSA not notice her purse walked through the x-ray machine, or perhaps she convinced them it was a guide dog despite the fact that it was a Chihuahua?)

All I know is, somehow I became her accomplice. My job was to keep an eye out for approaching flight attendants and sound the alarm if they got too close. At that point, she would stuff the dog back down in her purse, throw her coat (and mine) over it, and proceed to regale me with her entire lengthy medical history in full technicolor detail beginning with her appendectomy in 1952 right up to her hip replacement last year. Tim, on my other side, pretended he didn't know me and slept through the whole thing. (He always preferred Roulette to slots anyway)

Then there was the guy who apparently didn't get out much.

"You look like you travel a lot," he commented perkily, leaning across the middle seat as I settled into my window seat.

Why, do I have my frequent- flyer miles stamped on my forehead? Sensing that after an opening like that, the conversation could only go downhill, and I was effectively trapped in my seat for the next few hours, I dug out my ipod and opened my book.

"Do you come to Florida often? You're really pale. Don't you tan?" I was right. This lemon was rolling downhill very quickly.

Fortunately (for him), I was saved the necessity of a reply as the tenant of the middle seat arrived.

"My, you're a big girl," the silver-tongued Casanova quipped as she sat down with her McDonald's bag and gave him a look that could have frozen boiling oil.

"I mean, you're tall and big boned," he blithely continued on, not seeming to realize his life was on the line. "Do you play basketball?"

Well, at least he wasn't my lemon anymore.

At Christmas, I got to sit next to Mrs. Clean. Before sitting down, she pulled out a monster-sized pack of anti-bacterial wipes and proceeded to clean her seat, both armrests, the overhead bin handle, the back of the seat in front of her and her hands. She then offered a wipe to all of us around her (I'm not sure whether we were supposed to clean our seats or ourselves from head to toe), sat down, pulled her coat over her mouth and nose (I guess she forgot her hospital mask) and complained (to me) about the temperature on the plane (ironically, it was too cold for her) and how unsanitary the conditions were (if she thought the seats were unsanitary, wait until the first time she sees an airplane bathroom. I'm guessing she will need CPR--after the person administering it uses a wipe, of course).

On my other side, Tim read the paper and dozed while I made lemonade.

This last trip, I was seated next to a woman who was flying for the first time. Between the maintenance problems, lack of fuel and high winds, well, let's just say that this was no cherry either.

Half her time was spent grabbing my arm, demanding "What was that?", at every creak, shimmy and bump (and I wanted to help ease her fears, honestly, but I was a teensy bit busy running around in my head screaming, "We're all going to die!" to do much for her.)

The other half was spent directing me in the use of her camera and trying to get the perfect shot of all the pretty lights on the ground (I hoped she still thought they were pretty when we crashed into them.)

Tim, of course, slept through the bulk of this, which is just as well since he never really liked lemonade anyway.