Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Another one of these "don't laugh in church, god damnit" stories

My Mom, cousins, and I disliked having to go to church with my grandparents on Easter. We went because of tradition, but really couldn't stand it. One Easter, Mom was driving us kids there, and someone brought up the old ladies who loudly sing the hymns.

They have shrill, warbly, voices that are skull-piercingly bad. Baptist hymns also have a lot of impossibly high notes. So, there we were, four kids in the car were all trying to out-do each other in our impersonations.

We arrived, and settled into our pew with my cousins lined up, then me, my mom, and finally my grandparents at the end. The first hymn started, and of course, the loudest, shrillest old lady was directly behind us. We were shaking and wiping tears as we tried to hold in the laughter, and were utterly unable to sing along. I leaned over and whispered something to my mom (how I wish I could remember what it was that I said) that made her almost lose it. Instead of succumbing to the laughter, though, she snorted a little, and shot a giant booger onto the shoulder of the little old man in front of her. At that point, all bets were off. Mom and I absolutely lost it, cracking up and falling over in the aisle as my Grandmother delivered her finest death-glare. I'm stifling giggles at work right now, because 13 years later I still can't help laughing at this.

I think my favorite of my Mom's quotable remarks was, "I can't believe you made me shoot a boogie in church!"

8 comments: