When I went to church

Church is supposed to be a sanctuary. A place for good people to separate themselves from the evils of the world. Now, St. Patrick’s Cathedral must’ve had a breach in security or a gap in the floorboards because a couple evils managed to sneak their way inside and torment me what should have been a pleasant trip to church was instead a test of survival in the face of humanity at its most disturbed. 

The place was massive and intimidating, and in a flagrant display of anxiety I b-lined it for the first available seat because god forbid somebody see me look around for a minute and appear uncertain. In my blind dash for a seat I managed to land myself directly behind a ginormous pillar. Excited to experience a service in the largest gothic cathedral in America, I ended up nose-to-nose with a 25 foot wide support beam, only catching glimpses of candles, stained glass, and the occasional robe flourish so long as I craned my neck over the tiny latino sitting beside me. 

This front of “church procedure know-how” is tough to maintain because church services operate like choreographed dance routines that nobody bothers to explain to you. First we’re sitting, then suddenly we’re standing, and as quickly as we stood up, we’re back in the pew. By the time we’ve finished kneeling (is he even speaking English up there?) we’re instructed to “greet your neighbor” which is really code for “shake hands with strangers who smile too big”. 

Roughly 25 minutes into the service I began to hear a trickle. Due to my pillar-induced blindness, I assumed my hearing had heightened and was picking up the holy water babbling by the entrance. This was unfortunately not the case (and almost the exact opposite) as I looked directly to my left to see the culprit, crouched between the pews. That’s right everybody. While her dog sat idle beside her, I witnessed a woman squatting to the floor, relieving herself in the middle of the liturgy. 

Suddenly, the column became incredibly interesting. Is that limestone? What kind of white is that? Eggshell or alabaster?

At the call to communion I bounded toward the front in a desperate attempt to distance myself from the pool’s slow spread across the aisle, which was unfortunately not the most disorienting part of my visit. 

While walking up to the man with the crackers, I attempted to piece together what I’d witnessed as well as block it out entirely. It was in the midst of these mental gymnastics that I failed to notice exactly how the act of communion was being administered. In my ignorance, I assumed that any which way of coercing the saltine from the papacy’s decrepit grip would be sufficient. This was not the case. I was greeted by a priest who rattled off some rehearsed line that required, I later learned, a very specific response. Unfortunately for me I butchered it. Butchered it so badly in fact the priest was forced to ask me if I was “even catholic”. 

Put on the defensive, I said of course I am and I actually have the same birthday as the pope and I also consider that Judas character to be a real scumbag. He attempted once more to administer the communion to which I gave a response that was again so wrong he patted me on the shoulder, turned me around, and shook his head while saying, “you’re not catholic”.  

Somehow, someway, my attempt at communion was so incredibly harebrained this priest was certain that nowhere on the entire globe was Catholicism practiced like that. I walked back down the aisle fuming, stopping only to tell the door guy I’d left a treat for him in aisle 67, and if he wanted to save a trip he should bring a mop.