Hi-jinks and shenanigans at church this morning

This morning I got up early and went to church for the 7:00 am liturgy.  There were only three people there besides myself and Ben, so it was a small affair.  I read the Hours, Ben read the Epistles, and we both sang the liturgy together.  I, of course, started the service off with a nice, big SPLAT as I began to read the Hours before Fr. Justin had said the first prayer.  Intent on yammering my fool head off, I got about as far as "Holy God, Holy -" when I heard Fr. Justin go "TSSST TSSST TSSST!" from the altar... oops.  Hey, I'm still an infant when it comes to churchly and spiritual matters, mmmk?  Anywho.

After that, Ben and I sang the liturgy, with Fr. Justin starting us off and guiding us every now and then when we bumbled and flubbled.  Actually, I was surprised and pleased at how smoothly everything went... right up until communion, that is.  Ben went to assist Fr. Justin when we began the communion hymn, and as I stood there singing 'Receive the BOOOOOOODY of CHRIIIIIIST...", all by myself and in my own little world, I suddenly saw Fr. Justin gesticulating in my direction.  It took about three seconds for my brain to engage the clutch and to switch gears, at which point I realized that he wanted me to hop up there onto the uh... manoualia?  Is that the right word?  ...that little raised platform in front of the altar, to help Ben hold the communion cloth.  So, hoppeth up there I did, and while Dave and Sam and Louise took communion, I took one end of the communion cloth and stood there, holding it.  I didn't do anything else with it until Fr. Justin indicated that I should actually hold it up close to the communicant so that it would catch any stray drops that tried to escape.  At one point I almost pulled it out of Ben's hands, I think.

Anywho, after a very short while, it was my turn to receive communion.  Being at an odd angle, and trying to hold the cloth under my chin while taking a big bite of Mystery at the same time, I promptly knocked the Body of Christ off of the spoon and onto the communion cloth as I was trying to slurp it into my mouth.  Oops, again.  It seemed to me that Fr. Justin exhaled slowly as he dug around with the spoon in the folds of the cloth for the wayward Bread.  As he was trying to retreive it, I thought to myself... "Self, Fr. Justin is gonna have to burn that cloth now, all because you have clumsy lips."  After what seemed like an interminably long period, but which was probably just a few seconds, Fr. Justin retreived the Bread and we finally got the thing down my gullet without further incident.

Tidbits

Before work:

I scheduled a confession with my priest this afternoon before work.  All through it, thunder was booming and lightning was flashing, accentuating the sins which I uttered, as if I were receiving admonishment from God.  Afterward I walked back home in torrential rain.

Things that happened at work:

A couple walked in.  The guy said to the girl, "Why are you being so argumentative today?"  The girl replied, "Because you're always wrong."  Brittney commented, "The typical dynamic between men and women."

A customer approached my counter with an old, dusty gas can.  She asked me if I could open it for her.  I did, and a spider immediately JUMPED out and rapelled down to the floor on a string of silk, then vanished underneath the counter.  I can imagine its relief to be out of that smelly gas can.

I had eyes rolled at me by a flamboyantly gay man because I wasn't able to read his mind when he presented me with 21 dollars, declaring "I want a dollar fifty!"  In gas, apparently, after my psychic abilities kicked in.

I invented a new taquito today... the floppy tortilla flavored taquito.  Great for fast days.  I can't wait to present my new product to Chiy.

I also learned from Brittney that getting angry is ubiquitous among all human beings, and that I'm not defective.

After work:

As I said

This morning I watched The Iron Giant, a fun movie.  I've seen it several times.  This time, however, there was a long stretch of the movie that I didn't remember ever seeing before.  I thought that maybe I'd downloaded a 'directors cut' or something, but they don't just cut scenes from animated movies.  They either animate them, or they don't, because it's expensive to animate 15 minutes worth of movie and then just cut it.  It just doesn't happen like that.  Deleted scenes of animated movies consist of storyboards, not fully fleshed out animation.  And they're in the 'special features' section, not in the movie proper.

Oh well.  Maybe I've got a brain tumor.

Freestyling

Tonight Brittney played some more of her music for me.  She was rapping, and it sounded good.  I thought to myself, self, you may not be able to sing worth a damn, but I bet you could rap.  So I said to Brittney, "I bet I could rap!"  Brittney said that she was freestyling on that song, and I thought... hmmm.  Self, I bet you could could freestyle too.  So I said, "I bet I could freestyle too!"

So Brittney loaded up some Slim Shady on YouTube without the vocals, and here's what I freestyled:

"If you're bored with Star Wars, I'll bore a hole like a mole in your head till you're dead, then I'll steal your Keds and make treads so fast my shift is red, like the expanding universe, my verse will curse your purse strings, all your bling gone from being to not being, while I sing my account goes ka-ching, you feel the sting 'cause I'm king of the rhyming, double timing like a pod racer, I'll chase her with fur 'cause she's PETA, she don't like meata so I'll beat 'er with a tortilla, then I'll say 'see ya' and take off like a boss in my hyperdrive hoss, I live my life by the coin toss!"

Uh huh.  Yeah.  That's right.

My continuing descent into madness

One day, long after I'm dead of course, someone will run across this journal in some online repository and recognize it as pure genius and mourn over the fact that I never finished my astronaut novel.  This blog will be published posthumously in book form, and trillions of people across the galaxy will know the life story of the brilliant unsung hero of his time who went batshit insane.  Therefore, I feel that it is important to document these episodes, for the benefit of posterity.  

The other day I was getting ready for work and talking to Matt at the same time, all the while checking the clock on the microwave to make sure I wouldn't be late.  I even checked my arcade cab computer clock a couple of times.  The last clock I checked was my phone, right before I left... it was 1:55.  When I got to work, Brian said, "You're early!"  I thought he was kidding around with me, because I was exactly on time, and I usually show up at 2:04.  I laughed and said, "Yeah, I am."  I went to clock in and Chiy said, "Why you so early?  It only 1:00!"  I looked at my phone.  It was 1:00.  I was incredulous.  I was in a state of disbelief.  I was shocked.  I was just a tad bit unnerved.  I had looked at three different clocks several times as I was getting ready for work, and I read each of them as an hour later than the actual time, each time.

Yesterday I was perusing this comic.  When you move the cursor on top of one of the images and leave it, a little text box pops up that says 'The 98% Degree'.  Well, the first time I did this, it didn't read that.  It read, 'imaginary breaks'.  WTF are imaginary breaks?  I tried it again and again, on different panels and different places in the panels, and it never ever popped up with 'imaginary breaks' again.  Yup, I'm going insane.  

A life full of sin.

I don't have to put myself through hell every day.  It's an unconscious choice that I don't notice a lot of the time, but it's still a choice.  I just said to myself, out loud, "A life full of sin is what I -" and I meant to say 'lead'.  What came out was 'leave'.  I didn't mean to say that.  I guess it wasn't a conscious choice, but it was still a choice.