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.