Don't Piss-Off The Priest

The first time I ever saw a nun, I think I was eight.  She was riding a bike in her habit and this to me was hilarious.  I honestly didn't realize that they actually wore habits or that they were allowed to ride bikes in them.  Again, I was eight.  Around this same age I had worked it out in my head that a little elf lived under the middle of each intersection and had a kind of parascope which enabled him to see when the cars came, so that he could change the lights.  Lets just say, giggling at nuns was amateur stuff in comparison.  So, there I was riding in the little pick-up with Grandma Heckathorn giggling...well, like an eight year old seeing a bike-riding nun for the first time.  Little did I know, this would not be my last encounter with one of God's humble servants.

My friend Sam invited me to go to Cambridge this weekend.  Being that I'd never been before, I took him up on the invitation.  I had looked up a few things which seemed interesting that we might be able to do, but didn't have anything specific in mind.  I like to have ideas but I'm not a fan of ridged itineraries.  We planned to meet at King's Cross Station (THE King's Cross Station from Harry Potter...nerd alert!) and would take a train from there.  After purchasing our tickets we were off.  I am a huge fan of travel by train, now that I've done it a few times.  As gorgeous country side passed,  Sam and I had a lovely chat about where his research was leading him and how school is shaping up for me.  

At Cambridge station we disembarked from the train and immediately found a map to orient ourselves and find some of the significant landmark-ish areas of the city.  We decided to head to the university campus and see what we found along the way.  As we were walking we came upon a gorgeous old church. It was called something like Her Lady of Awesomeness Catholic Church (that's a rough translation).  It had beautiful stained-glass windows, amazing gargoyles and I'm pretty sure Shakespeare's head mounted beside a buttress.  Oh goodie, old stuff!  So I asked Sam if he wanted to go in and he was down.  

To all my Catholic friends, no disrespect.  I love going to Mass and find it beautiful.  I love the tradition of Mass and the fact that the biggest change in it's delivery in the passed three-hundred years has been that it's no longer given in Latin.  I like that there is something inherently healing about holding hands with a stranger as you pray.  I like knowing I'm standing in a hallowed place while I offer and receive peace and good tidings from those around me.  But most of all, I love the fact that even though I'm not Catholic and cannot receive communion, I can still go up with everyone else and receive a blessing.  But lets just be real, priests and nuns scare the hell out of me.  And rightly so I suppose, it's their job, isn't it?

As we walked in we realized communion was being given, so we tried to be as quiet as possible.  We looked around at some of the beautiful paintings in the back of the church and admired the truly amazing architecture surrounding us.  We watched for a minute as people stood in a small line down the center isle to receive communion.  I asked Sam if he had ever received a blessing before. He said he hadn't.  So I asked him if he wanted to.  He said sure, so I explained what to do.  "Rather than put your hands out for a communion wafer, you put them to your chest and ask for a blessing.  The priest will give you a blessing and then you're good to go."  I told him I'd go first so he could see what to do.  

Apparently I didn't explain myself well enough or Sam misunderstood or both.  As I turned around to wait for Sam to receive his blessing, I watched as he took a wafer and popped it into his mouth.  I was horrified.  Not only that, but he walked directly passed the woman holding the communion wine.  It now makes complete sense why she downed the rest of the cup when it was over.  So we are standing in the side isle and I'm quietly explaining what the stations of the cross are, as we walk passed the carvings on the wall.   And then it happened.  Out of nowhere, the priest, a tiny man (all of five feet) in a huge white hat, which actually completed his stature of five feet, practically ran up to us and started grilling us very loudly, in his british accent, bad teeth getting in the way and all.  He asked if we were fit to take communion.  Of course I immediately panicked and started to speak, but he dismissed me and said, "oh, yes, you only received a blessing." Let's just be honest here, if he hadn't cut me off, I was totally going to throw Sam to the snuggle toothed wolves.  I'm pretty sure I had pee'd myself a little.  It was like this little man was staring into my soul.  And then he turned his beady eyes on Sam.  

Again to my Catholic friends, I'm sure you have experienced the terror we were facing and because of this experience,  I now fully understand the expression "nervous as a whore in church."  He then asked Sam, "Are you fit to take communion?"  Let me just say that although Sam speaks five different languages, out of them all, he speaks English the poorest.  He looked at the priest and said, "Yes." I was sure a thunderbolt from the heavens was going to come crashing through the roof.  He lied to a priest!!!  Then the priest, practically shouting, his little hat trembling at eye level, sprayed out the words, "It's too quick, sit down and say your prayers, it too quick.  You can't just take communion like that, sit and be thankful."  So Sam, with head bowed after his public scolding turned into a row and sat.  I followed.  After a second or two, after I could no longer hear the adrenaline and my heart pumping in my ears,  I looked up to make sure the priest was gone and then I looked at Sam; probably just to see if he was still alive.  "We should go." I said.  "On three." Said Sam.  "One, two, three."  I would have run, but I was sure the priest would have hurdled the pews and cut us off at the pass, so a very brisk walk it was to the door and away.  

Outside the church I gave Sam crap about lying to the priest.  He admitted that he couldn't understand what the priest was saying, so he just shook his head and said "Yes." I told him that skipping the wine was a dead give away.  His response was, "Who drinks before noon?"  For the rest of the day as we passed random churches I would ask Sam if he wanted a do-over, or I would tell him that the Presbyterians, Baptists, Pentecostals, insert denomination here __________________, would not yell at him, or that it was just a warm up and now he was really ready. Best start to a trip EVER!!  

The rest of the day was great as well, we went to an art gallery, saw dinosaur bones and fossils at a museum, ate some pretty delicious hamburgers, went to a science/discovery center (on Jesus Street oddly enough), hit up an old fashioned candy store, a book store, and most appropriately, ended the day at a pub.  On the train ride back we agreed to completely ignored each other and read the books that we had bought earlier in the day.  A fun day all around!

This was a gigantic prehistoric elk/deer, about the size of a moose!

Can't remember the kind of Dinosaur, but cool!

T-Rex scull

Candy!!

More candy, you can buy it by the piece, ounce or pound!

Snuffleupagus

If you are reading this post expecting it to be about Sesame Street, you should probably stop reading now.  This post is about men who masturbate in public.

If you just read the last sentence and your eyes started bleeding, you should probably stop reading.

If you are my parents, for God-sake, STOP READING!!

Let's be honest, I know they're going to read on, I know them too well.

In Norway Julia and I were having drinks and we were swapping all kinds of funny stories, when she told me about her experience with the New York City subway system, and the various instances in which she had encountered men, well, flogging their molly, having a wank or whatever you want to call it.  I was in disbelief that people could be so disgusting.  And there were multiple stories, multiple! including: a homeless man "sleeping" on a train packed with women, just holding his business with both hands, like it was a cup of hot coffee...in this story, the book Julia was holding immediately doubled as a shield just.in.case;  an empty train and a twenty-something business man (in a three piece suit) at the opposite end swinging his junk around like the blades of a helicopter; and finally, two-pump Johnny sitting two people down and across from her on a train...no one thought it was silly sting dude, NO ONE!!! I'm so in shock that Julia has experienced these things. I will admit that I often prompt her to tell the stories to new groups of people we hang out with, because the way she tells the stories are so funny, inevitably, I end up in tears because I'm laughing so hard!  You can't make this crap up!

Then it made me kind of paranoid, because what if I saw someone...what would I do?! On our train ride to the airport when flying to Venice, Julia and I sat across from a man watching his iPad.  Okay, lets just say this guy had "masturbates on trains" written all over him, right down to the thick gold chain tangled in his creepy, ginger chest hair, proudly displayed for the world to see.  I started watching his hands and then began to regret not taking out my contacts in favor of my glasses for the ride.  I like my eyes, I want to keep them, BOTH! I have a friend whose roommate almost lost an eye in a tequila shooting accident, I can't imagine what...silly string would do!?! The panic subsided as I saw him doze off, another quick hand check and....we're good!  Whew!  As we waited for the plane Julia told me that she was watching him too!

That was weeks ago and since then I'd really forgotten to be on the look out or paranoid in any sense of the word.  And wouldn't you know it, the minute I stop being wary, that's when it happens.  When I walk to the tube from my house, I walk down a small connecting street to avoid the busy corner.  Ahead of me were two green garage doors and in front of them stood a man with his back to me.  I just kept walking because I thought he was peeing or possibly tagging the garage, because he kept looking over his shoulder.  I saw that he had no teeth because suddenly, he was smiling.  I was half way down the road when I realized what he was doing.  That wasn't a spray paint can he was shaking, but that garage door was never going to be the same....SWEET JESUS!!  Internally, I panicked and thought about turning around and running, but he had seen me...EFFFF!  And let's be honest, I was worried that my running away would alarm him, which might cause him to think: "Why is that woman running away? What's happening? DANGER! I better run too? I'm in danger, no time to put this thing away!!" which would inevitably lead to my being chased down the street by a man with his Snuffleupagus hanging out. OKAY, Plan B: just look at the ground and walk. PLAY. IT. COOL.  I hate plan B.  There was a street's width between us, which wasn't and will never be enough space.  How did the few other people and cars on the street not see this!?!  Well, because apparently London is like Sesame Street and people are use to seeing Snuffleupagus ALL THE TIME!!!