Bobbing for World Peace

It has come to my attention that Tina wants a break from crying when she reads my posts. Some people can be so demanding. But you know me–always the accommodating sort. Benefactress to the masses and whatnot. Though I would remind Tina that crying can be a useful activity–like when someone else gets the biggest piece of cake, and you cry really loud, and your mom sees what happened and lets you have ice cream, too. But even so, if I had to choose between crying and laughing, obviously I’d go with laughing. I mean, who ever gave anyone points for making her cry?
I have a very visual imagination. The downside is getting in trouble for bursting out in spasms of hilarity at inappropriate moments. The upside is the constant potential for a party going on in my head. If I have the opportunity to share my thoughts with the class, all the better. Especially if the class is easily amused.
Some people seem to consistently bring out this tendency in me. I suspect it’s the people with the readiest laughter. I love those people. I need only see their faces or hear their voices (or, in this case, read their words in an e-mail) and I find my brain going off into Random Land and dragging them along for the ride.
One such person happens to be our church secretary, Ellie, who–small world!–also happens to be Tina’s mother. Last Monday she sent the following e-mail to a select few church members/staff:
For any or all of you who may want to put something in the October newsletter, I would like to have that by Wednesday so I can send out the newsletter on Thursday.
Before we go any farther, I should explain why I was amongst “the select” (which, by the way, is not to be confused with “the elect.” Wars have been launched over lesser misunderstandings!) The answer is simple. As of September, I am the President of Women in Ministry at EPC of Marshall. (Stop laughing, Tina. That’s not the funny part.) When I got Ellie’s e-mail, I thought, “Oh, boogers! Was I supposed to write an article for the newsletter?” So I responded immediately with this:
Um, yeah. Newsletter. Yeah, okay. How ’bout this?
Jeanne Damoff, newly installed president of Women in Ministry, will represent EPC in the Church Ladies’ Beauty Contest to be held at 6:30 PM on October 23 at Third Presbyterian Church of Mount Enterprise, in conjunction with their Harvest Hootenanny. The beauty contest will immediately follow the pumpkin toss. We hope all the women will come out and support Jeanne as she dazzles the evening-gown competition in her full-length “merciful magenta” muumuu with tasteful turtleneck styling, accessorized with a golden “halo” tiara. For her talent, Jeanne will perform bird calls. Don’t miss this opportunity to mingle with other Christians while promoting beauty and nature.
Or perhaps not.
So . . . am I supposed to put something in the newsletter every month?
Jeanne
I already mentioned Ellie is a humor kindred. She wrote back that an article on Faith Focus had already been submitted, so I was off the hook for the month. Then she added: Please consider, however, that if I did not have anything else, the temptation to print your creative entry would have been difficult, at best, to overcome!
I then told her, if she’s so easily tempted, I would make it my primary goal as madame president to tamper with her reputation as gatekeeper of the newsletter.
Her response? “Tamper away!”
Hot diggidy! Who knew church leadership could be so much fun? If I accomplish nothing else during my tenure, I plan to establish a.) if anyone reads the newsletter, and b.) how gullible our members are.
In closing, if you don’t have anything else going on at 6:30 on October 23, come vote for Jeanne as Pumpkin Princess of the Harvest Hootenanny. Caw!