Side note: While reviewing this blog to find appropriate entries, I noticed that a LOT of the formatting has gone catawampus and a ton of photos are missing. It bothers me. Ah well, maybe another day. Today, the font and formatting and photos will have to wait.
Let's see how well you know the sophomoric land of which I wallow: let's talk about the wife. You know I could go on for forever about our adventures...jobs, cars, dogs, health, football, softball, vacations, concerts, food. Oh, the food! There is so much to say, so many blogs about the wife. I'd love to combine them into one big blob of a blog, but that is a novel in itself. I know she won't be entertained, knowing there is an entire blog dedicated to her. Too bad--I'm living on the edge today!
We officially first met in the college cafeteria. She was on campus for freshman orientation. I was working that day because I was going to be a Resident Assistant for the year and one of our jobs was to welcome incoming freshmen. I was assigned to the beverage table. Of course I was. I was to pour out cups of ice tea or lemonade; but, being me, I was offering other things of which didn't exist. When the wife bellied up to my bar--er, I mean table, I said, "Vodka or Gin?" Yes. Those were my first official words to her. I remember it. She remembers it. We still laugh about it. We should have realized it was destiny. Thankfully, her father did not hear me.
We didn't speak again until many weeks later. It was while standing in line waiting for the cafeteria to open when we next spoke. We were ALWAYS the first two in line. One fateful day, I turned around and said, "You're a woman after my own heart." The need for food-related punctuality and respect of all things alcohol became the basis of true friendship.
As we got to know each other, I learned the wife worked for the Catholic Priest on campus. Being the good Catholic that she was, this was the BEST WORK-STUDY JOB EVER. When I asked what she was supposed to do during this very holy employment, she replied, "Honestly, I don't know." As far as I could tell, her job was to hang around in the chapel. This meant I could often be found hanging around in the chapel.
One of the wife's duties of which we could identify was to "break the bread" when it arrived for Mass. It was awesome. A parishioner would bake a large loaf of bread and bring it to the chapel. The wife then would "rip" the loaf into pieces, readying it for Communion during Sunday's mass. I tried to be around whenever the wife was on bread ripping patrol because I LOVED that homemade bread. Sometimes it was still warm when it was delivered. It was so good it didn't need butter. I wanted in on the action. Yum! This bread was DELICIOUS. I mean--we loved, loved, loved it. It was sweet but not sugary, hard but not too hard, dense and delicious. Because it was so delicious and because we each weighed about seven million pounds and because we were college students who really didn't think twice about things, we would eat as much bread as we could without letting it "show" bread was "missing." We quickly learned that if we filled the "bottom" part of the bowl with regular old hosts and put the homemade bread on top of those wafers, it looked like there was a lot of bread. If we tried to fill the bowl without the hosts, it looked like someone had indeed been snarfing down bread with the communion wine that was missing. That would have given us away.
Of course, we needed something to wash down that bread. We quickly learned that the communion wine would suffice. Yes, we drank the unblessed communion wine. I am here to tell you that the wine is AWFUL. Terrible. Gag-worthy. Being poor, desperate, thirsty college students, we didn't care. We just drank it and made faces and passed the bottle back and forth. It wasn't the blood of Christ yet, so we figured there wasn't anything wrong with this. We even drank it after accidentally pushed the cork into the bottle. It left little pieces of cork floating around in the bottle. Didn't stop us from drinking it.
If you think it's entertaining that the wife worked at a church during college, you'll love to learn that I used to serve Communion while in college. You know, as an extraordinaire minister. Blessed or whatever, there I was, seal of approval to serve communion, doling out the Body of Christ to the parishioners. I did this whenever needed, hung over or not, dressed appropriately or not, feeling holy or not. Most often, I was hung over, a wrinkled mess and not very holy--but when the Body of Christ calls, you answer.
That bread consumption came back to haunt me. Jesus sees all and knows all. But first, we must get through Saturday night to get to Sunday Mass.
The wife and I were returning home from a party. A really fun party. Hell, there was a lady sitting on the toilet--bathroom door obviously wide open--with a lit cigarette in each ear. It's that kind of party. The wife, for some unknown reason, had a can of beer in her coat pocket. I do not remember the actual brand of beer but I am sure it was very cheap. As we were walking, the beer fell out of her pocket and rolled down the asphalt road (we were, obviously, walking downhill). We watched it roll, roll, roll. Then, I watched the wife start running down the hill, chasing the can. She couldn't, after all, let a good beer go to waste. The beer beat her down the hill but she finally caught up with it and put it back into her pocket. We continued our short trek and reached the destination: our dorm.
We were very tired from chasing that beer (a-hem), so we took the elevator instead of walking the few flights of stairs to our destination. One of the Holy-Roller-Sober guys was already on the elevator. He hesitantly but chivalrously held the door open for us. I give him credit--holding the elevator for two heathen drunkards would be a stretch for most Holy-Roller-Sober guys. The wife leaned against the back wall. I leaned against the left wall. He stood staring straight ahead, mortified. He was probably silently praying for our souls. The doors closed and the elevator began to move. As I'm standing there, I hear this ssss-s-s-s-s-s-ssssss noise, kind of like a snake hissing. At first I thought I was hearing things, but then I realize no, there really is a hissing noise. I turn to the the wife, I look at the guy, I look around. I then notice the guy's eyes get REALLY wide and it looks like he's holding his breath. I look back at the wife...
...and see a thin stream of golden liquid shooting out of her coat pocket. It was a golden arch of beer, slowing hissing out of the beer can, shooting majestically out of her pocket. Seems the can we chased must have gotten a hole in it. Seeing as the beer was so shaken up from all that rolling, it was shooting beer out of the tiny hole in the side of the can. I BURST out laughing and then stop to realize this is the exact moment I am in love with her and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Sunday morning arrives. The wife and I are at Catholic mass. We "might" be hung over. The wife is still wearing the beer-shooting-from-pocket jacket. I'm definitely wearing something that hasn't been washed. I'm sitting there, minding my own business when I'm reminded it's my weekend to serve Communion. I get up from my seat, drag my sorry ass up to the altar, get my Body of Christ from the priest, grab my bowl of bread-hosts-Jesus body and waddle to my place to serve Communion.
Of course, we needed something to wash down that bread. We quickly learned that the communion wine would suffice. Yes, we drank the unblessed communion wine. I am here to tell you that the wine is AWFUL. Terrible. Gag-worthy. Being poor, desperate, thirsty college students, we didn't care. We just drank it and made faces and passed the bottle back and forth. It wasn't the blood of Christ yet, so we figured there wasn't anything wrong with this. We even drank it after accidentally pushed the cork into the bottle. It left little pieces of cork floating around in the bottle. Didn't stop us from drinking it.
If you think it's entertaining that the wife worked at a church during college, you'll love to learn that I used to serve Communion while in college. You know, as an extraordinaire minister. Blessed or whatever, there I was, seal of approval to serve communion, doling out the Body of Christ to the parishioners. I did this whenever needed, hung over or not, dressed appropriately or not, feeling holy or not. Most often, I was hung over, a wrinkled mess and not very holy--but when the Body of Christ calls, you answer.
That bread consumption came back to haunt me. Jesus sees all and knows all. But first, we must get through Saturday night to get to Sunday Mass.
The wife and I were returning home from a party. A really fun party. Hell, there was a lady sitting on the toilet--bathroom door obviously wide open--with a lit cigarette in each ear. It's that kind of party. The wife, for some unknown reason, had a can of beer in her coat pocket. I do not remember the actual brand of beer but I am sure it was very cheap. As we were walking, the beer fell out of her pocket and rolled down the asphalt road (we were, obviously, walking downhill). We watched it roll, roll, roll. Then, I watched the wife start running down the hill, chasing the can. She couldn't, after all, let a good beer go to waste. The beer beat her down the hill but she finally caught up with it and put it back into her pocket. We continued our short trek and reached the destination: our dorm.
We were very tired from chasing that beer (a-hem), so we took the elevator instead of walking the few flights of stairs to our destination. One of the Holy-Roller-Sober guys was already on the elevator. He hesitantly but chivalrously held the door open for us. I give him credit--holding the elevator for two heathen drunkards would be a stretch for most Holy-Roller-Sober guys. The wife leaned against the back wall. I leaned against the left wall. He stood staring straight ahead, mortified. He was probably silently praying for our souls. The doors closed and the elevator began to move. As I'm standing there, I hear this ssss-s-s-s-s-s-ssssss noise, kind of like a snake hissing. At first I thought I was hearing things, but then I realize no, there really is a hissing noise. I turn to the the wife, I look at the guy, I look around. I then notice the guy's eyes get REALLY wide and it looks like he's holding his breath. I look back at the wife...
...and see a thin stream of golden liquid shooting out of her coat pocket. It was a golden arch of beer, slowing hissing out of the beer can, shooting majestically out of her pocket. Seems the can we chased must have gotten a hole in it. Seeing as the beer was so shaken up from all that rolling, it was shooting beer out of the tiny hole in the side of the can. I BURST out laughing and then stop to realize this is the exact moment I am in love with her and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Sunday morning arrives. The wife and I are at Catholic mass. We "might" be hung over. The wife is still wearing the beer-shooting-from-pocket jacket. I'm definitely wearing something that hasn't been washed. I'm sitting there, minding my own business when I'm reminded it's my weekend to serve Communion. I get up from my seat, drag my sorry ass up to the altar, get my Body of Christ from the priest, grab my bowl of bread-hosts-Jesus body and waddle to my place to serve Communion.
Looking down at the bowl now in my hands, I notice the wife and I were a little over zealous in the "use the hosts-to-fluff-the bread" department, as chunks of that delicious bread were just about flowing over the top of my communion host bowl. I'm standing there with my mantra, "Body of Christ, Body of Christ, Body of Christ," handing out bread when the unimaginable happens:
The BODY OF CHRIST JUMPS OUT OF MY BOWL AND ONTO THE FLOOR. This is worse than death to a Catholic.
JESUS HAS JUST JUMPED OUT OF THE BOWL AND HE'S ON THE FLOOR!!!! I do not know what to do. There's the hunk of bread, no longer just a hunk of bread but rather a hunk of Jesus, Body of Christ, on the floor by my left foot. I am filled with sheer terror.
They never told me what to do in such emergencies. How was I to know Jesus would ever jump out of the bowl? I can see him, he can see me.
I look at the person I was about to provide Communion.
I look at Jesus on the floor.
I look at my bowl.
Jesus ain't getting off the floor and the priest isn't noticing the Catholic Chaos going on next to him.
The line is getting longer, people are waiting for their transubstantiated piece of bread....
There is nothing I can do but bend over, pick up the Body of Christ and shove him into my mouth.
I'LL SAVE YOU, JESUS!
It's poetic justice. You know, the wife and I always tried to rip the bread into small, manageable pieces, but this Jesus-on-the-floor piece (of course!) was a HUGE hunk of bread. Usually, this would have been an awesome thing; it's the size you hoped you'd get when going to communion--but, in this case, this huge wad of bread was a bad thing. I've got this dry, dry cotton mouth, I'm already freaked out, I'm woozy and wrinkled, I'm on the verge of passing out and now I've got this wad of bread in my mouth that I can't swallow because I don't have any spit and I have to continue my job of serving Communion.
I shove the wad to the left cheek and mutter out "Bolly of Cliste, Bolly of Cliste."
The world didn't end, I wasn't struck down by lightning. Everything seemed in order. Me? I returned to my seat and tried not to pass out or vomit. The wife told me I did good. I whispered that we needed to stop eating the Communion bread upon arrival at the chapel. I wasn't messing around with Jesus anymore.
Flash forward several decades. It had been a tough day. An employee had alerted upper management about the morally reprehensible boss she had and thus she was quitting. She could not work for a homosexual. This was quite a shock to me, for myriad reasons. I was dumbfounded. As a boss, I actually had professional boundaries during this juncture in my life. I went to work and I went home. That's it. Maybe I had been too nice. I had listened to her proselytize and smiled when she placed a Bible on my desk. I didn't throw her out or tell her to knock it off. I just said thank you. In turn, she identified me as morally corrupt during her spontaneous exist interview with the top three people in the agency.
I look at the person I was about to provide Communion.
I look at Jesus on the floor.
I look at my bowl.
Jesus ain't getting off the floor and the priest isn't noticing the Catholic Chaos going on next to him.
The line is getting longer, people are waiting for their transubstantiated piece of bread....
There is nothing I can do but bend over, pick up the Body of Christ and shove him into my mouth.
I'LL SAVE YOU, JESUS!
It's poetic justice. You know, the wife and I always tried to rip the bread into small, manageable pieces, but this Jesus-on-the-floor piece (of course!) was a HUGE hunk of bread. Usually, this would have been an awesome thing; it's the size you hoped you'd get when going to communion--but, in this case, this huge wad of bread was a bad thing. I've got this dry, dry cotton mouth, I'm already freaked out, I'm woozy and wrinkled, I'm on the verge of passing out and now I've got this wad of bread in my mouth that I can't swallow because I don't have any spit and I have to continue my job of serving Communion.
I shove the wad to the left cheek and mutter out "Bolly of Cliste, Bolly of Cliste."
The world didn't end, I wasn't struck down by lightning. Everything seemed in order. Me? I returned to my seat and tried not to pass out or vomit. The wife told me I did good. I whispered that we needed to stop eating the Communion bread upon arrival at the chapel. I wasn't messing around with Jesus anymore.
Flash forward several decades. It had been a tough day. An employee had alerted upper management about the morally reprehensible boss she had and thus she was quitting. She could not work for a homosexual. This was quite a shock to me, for myriad reasons. I was dumbfounded. As a boss, I actually had professional boundaries during this juncture in my life. I went to work and I went home. That's it. Maybe I had been too nice. I had listened to her proselytize and smiled when she placed a Bible on my desk. I didn't throw her out or tell her to knock it off. I just said thank you. In turn, she identified me as morally corrupt during her spontaneous exist interview with the top three people in the agency.
I was one pissed off, disgusted person after learning of this. I was scowling mad. I drove home, fuming all the way. Upon arrival, I didn't bother saying hello to the wife. Instead, I went up to the bedroom, grabbed the Bible the lady had so "lovingly" placed on my desk, marched downstairs, opened the garbage can and forcefully, angrily and purposefully threw the Bible away. In. The. Garbage. I threw the Bible in the Garbage. You think Jesus was mad about that body-on-the-floor thing? This put that to shame.
Still scowling, I stood there looking at the garbage, pondering if I felt any better. In true wife fashion, the wife said nothing. She looked at me, glanced at the garbage can, looked at me, walked over to the garbage can, opened the garbage can and fished out Bible.
She then said, "At LEAST you could RECYCLE it." She then literally walked out the door and put the Bible into the Recycle Bin. She returned, gave me a slight smile and went back to whatever she had been doing before I stormed in the door.
That. THAT is true love.
No questions.
No judgment.
Just acceptance and a nod to the environment.
No questions.
No judgment.
Just acceptance and a nod to the environment.
And so, this third of 16 final blogs comes to a close. The wife. She's persevered through my my fashion faux pas and weird hairdos. She's boarded little planes, big planes and connecting planes, all without knowing the destination. She tries to hold her tongue when she finds gum in the dryer--again. She tries not to roll her eyes too loudly when I've once again lost my keys or phone or wallet. She's shared the Communion Bread with me. She's forgiven me and the dogs for the unmeasurable antics over the years.
She's the person who takes the Bible out of the garbage so it can be recycled.
No questions.
No judgment.
Just a good buffet, another concert, a green and gold victory, a love of carbohydrates.
A woman after my own heart.
No judgment.
Just a good buffet, another concert, a green and gold victory, a love of carbohydrates.
A woman after my own heart.
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