When you're an old lady, the Sunday morning routine can become a challenge. Not that I mind, spending a few hours with the Lord. But many times I get carried away with my primping or applying
makeup and rouge and brushing out the pincurls to clip under my Sunday
Veil. During these beauty sessions, the urge to move my bowels is nonexistent. It makes me so angry that only when I am situated in Church after the second reading that my belly becomes uncooperative.
Twice now, I've had to make hasty departures to the basement ladies room, and it usually happens after singing the Responsorial Psalm. Why aren't my bowels operational on the
schedule I had in my younger days? This blasted colon of mine is just giving up and exclaiming, "Sorry Maureen." I am so lucky my legs are relatively stable. I can take heart in being spry, I suppose, as both emergency
episodes saw my energy levels rise so high, I was transported to the commode in the nick of time like a nimble gazelle. My
cane or walker became superfluous. Even with Depends, the fear of becoming a soiled mess can move mountains. Making matters worse, however, the location of the exits in our Church never allowed me to hide my shame. On both occasions, the entire church community saw me make an exit, and were thusly reminded that I also poop just like they do. Whenever anybody is afforded the opportunity to envision me on
the throne, it doesn't make me happy.
One such occurrence happened after I had already endured
several minutes of intestinal agony that required more pluck than I was able to muster that morning. I sat and motionlessly winced in pain, trying to play off
the quizzical stares from other parishners once they began hearing my stomach symphony. I was hoping the facial
expressions and a cool mannered head toss with a giggle might hide the undeniable gravity of the situation I had found myself in, particularly since I have occupied the 5th-row-back-left-center-pew for
most of my church going life.
A few years ago, during a summertime heatwave when Msgr. Kroke was denouncing Roe v. Wade in
a particularly impassioned Sunday Homily encouraging us all to vote for
McCain/Palin, I made one of these quick dashes. Horrors for me! Abortion is murder, I believe that, but in this scenario, all of my anti abortionist work was shattered on
that day that Msgr. Kroke was so loudly proclaiming the evils of
then-President Elect Obama. Anybody getting up to leave the congregation was guilty of looking like a Democrat! Because of the blasted political divide that
exists in this country, I became a marked woman who has since faced a barrage of
exceeding disdain from my Church Community. So you see, nothing good has ever come from pooping, and I am so tired of being a slave to it.
Desperate to cling to my well-earned pro-life reputation, I had to divulge the absolute truth about my
surprised bowels to some Church acquaintances and hope for the best. I faced a difficult decision because in doing so, all those years of vigilance with the extra shoes, and the rescheduling of appointments, and the breathing exercises to stave off peristalsys during the liturgy became mere folly. All the work I put into protecting my pooping secret went kablooey.
And the reverberations haven't stopped. Miss Yadurnak
(the unfit mother of a retarded boy named Marvin) snagged me in the
Church Vestibule today and asked me who I was going to vote for this year. I told
her that I was an Obama Mama. She told me that my
conservative jewels were made muddy in the last Presidential Election when I waltzed out of the Church
during Msgr. Kroke's Pro life Homily. Oh how I wanted to tell her that I was only leaving to take a bm, but then I
figured to hecks with it. I certainly wasn't going to give her the
satisfaction of knowing that I pooped. Let that girl think I
was making a pro abortion statement, and see if I care! Such bitter irony that the Yadurnak Girl and I are equally annoyed by this situation, yet for entirely different reasons.
Good Catholics are often tortured in order
to achieve greatness in the life beyond, to that perfect world in Heaven Above, where
nobody poops. Today this is my fondest wish, and the subject of my most splendid ejaculation of prayer. Dear Lord I pray that all of this pooping embarassment will amount to something in the end.
Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr.
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