I was supposed to be giving a speech at church, so I figured I should actually go. I walked in the front doors of the building and into the main churchy room. It was still pretty early (relative to the time the mass starts) so all of the lights were off except for the ones up on the altar.

Jeanne Engles, a woman who goes to my church, was in charge of scheduling the music for the mass. There were supposed to be six songs during the course of the service and there was a specific way that she would choose them. There were several hundred different filecards that each had three different songs on them, and two of these cards would be drawn from the filebox. She drew the two cards and began to write down the songs for today's mass when I noticed that there was one song that appeared on both cards. I pointed out to her that there would be a repeated song during the mass, and she didn't know what to do. I suggested that we ask Father Halligan, and she thought that sounded like a good plan. However, she said to me "You'll have to do it--I have to go to the bathroom, so take my violin and good luck." She then handed me her violin (I don't know where it came from) and took off downstairs for the restrooms.

Father Halligan walked in and I went up to him and told him the situation. He apparently didn't understand what I was asking, because he responded with something to the effect of "This calls for extreme measures." He pulled a key out of his pocket and walked over to the end of one of the pews and unlocked a secret door. He pulled out a very nice acoustic guitar, handed it to me, and requested that I play a D chord. I did, and then he said "Now play a barre D" and I did. His face twisted in thought for a bit, and then he said "I can't decide out here. Let's go back into my office and work this out."

We got into his office and the first thing I noticed was that Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe by Whale was playing in there. I sat down on the rug in the middle of the room and continued to play D chords at his request. Meanwhile, Father Halligan decided that he needed to shave, so he whipped out his razor and did that with my musical accompaniment.

While I was playing, I noticed a dinner-plate sized THING climbing up his wall. It looked like a coiled up king snake, and I did NOT like the looks of it. I pointed it out to him and asked what it was, and he told me it was some sort of bug that grew a new section every year, and since it was as big as it was, he just couldn't bear to kill it. He then told me that it really was quite a nice bug, so he pulled it off the wall and tossed it to me. Ick.

Mass was starting, and all of the members of the normal church band were gone, so the music would be provided by me (who knew none of the church songs) and two four year olds, one of which played a piccolo and the other played a recorder. Needless to say, we STUNK, but we tried. After the service, everyone was in an outrage. They claimed that our pathetic musicianship was a mockery of the godsongs. We were sacreligious blasphemers and all that fun stuff.

Much later, out in the parking lot, I was standing with a relatively small group of people when some crazy woman drove in and smashed into another car with her truck. She then proceeded to leave the scene of the accident. Quite conveniently, three state patrolmen drove through the parking lot soon after. I went up to the car of the first one and told him that a hit and run incident had just taken place. He asked if I could describe the vehicle that did it, and I told him that it was a maroon pickup truck that looked like it was probably from the early eighties. My friend Brian, who knows a lot about cars, spoke up and added "It was a 1980 Chevy [something or other]...but it wasn't maroon, it was blue." I told the officer that it was really dirty, so that's probably why Brian thought it was blue. But Brian piped up and said "I know more about cars--it was blue." That went on for a while, and then I moved on and told the officer that the licence plate number was 1-1856. The patrolman then said "Okay boys...thanks for your help. We'll go after her someday..." and I said "SOMEDAY?!? If you go now you can probably catch her in a matter of minutes!" and he said "Come on, do you really think we can catch her? Jeesh, she left quite a few minutes ago. No way." So I muttered something about his incompetence and that upset him. He and his fellow patrolmen then changed into Keifer Sutherland and Emilio Estevez and got out of the car. They told all of us to take off our pants. All of the people in the parking lot complied, but I was like "This is not for me" and I left.

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