I've got one more commandment to break... and I'm looking for victim volunteers.
In the Easter of my sixth year, an itchy-suited and hard-shoed visit to church with my grandma turned into a raging holy war that had the parishioners and the clergy arguing with me in teams and relays.
It started innocently enough: "Why does God care if we take off our hats, Grandma?" But the nosy ladies in the nearby pews couldn't bear to simply listen in, and the argument spread like ripples on a pond, out as far as the pulpit, where the pastor decided to squash the whole line of inquiry with some half-remembered philosophical word games from Descartes in which the objective truth of reality is used to prove the beneficence of God and vice versa, and culminates with "I think therefore I am." Pastor Rhiel even managed to work it into the thread of the sermon, but before he could go on, my shrill little voice answered from within the congregation.
Amazingly, my six-year-old brain had managed to assimilate all of Descartes' fairly tricksy riddles in as long as it took to describe them, and then went on to use those same arguments to prove the necessary cruelty of God, followed by the necessary nonexistence of the Supreme Being, and Grandma tried to take me home then, but the pastor - who'd apparently watched Jesuits play intellectual table tennis and recognised a natural when he saw one - called me to the pulpit, where I took on the entire congregation, singly and in bunches, as they assailed my reasoning and I built it back up, laying rhetorical traps that they blundered into with all the cunning of a cabbage.
Pastor Rhiel laughed and clarified the points when they were stuttered out by some marble-mouthed rhetorical amateur from the audience, then sat back and marveled as I did my thing. Not much was getting done vis-a-vis sermonizing, and there was still the communion to be administered, but God knew it had been a long time since the congregation was engaged so thoroughly with coming to grips with God and what their faith meant.
Afterwards, when I was returned to my scandalized, thin-lipped Grandma, Pastor Rhiel made a point of warmly embracing her and telling her that I was welcome at his pulpit any time, and suggested a future in the seminary. Grandma was amazed, and blushed under her Sunday powder, and the clawed hand on my shoulder became a caress.
note: none of the above may actually have happened
I still like to argue.
Sometimes to clarify what someone is saying, either for myself or for their benefit. Sometimes just for the sake of arguing.
And sometimes when I get frustrated. I'm not a big one for hitting walls, but I can let the force out of my mouth. God help you if I've been eating onions.
When I made it home last night (around 0200), I checked my mail. There was an envelope from work in there, which is odd. I got my renewed license earlier that same day so it couldn't be paperwork for that. I'd received the schedule for the next two weeks and my name was on that, so I wasn't fired. What could it be?
So I tore open the end and saw... a pink slip.
Rather, a pinkish slip of paper. It was a cheque. Get this:
It was pay for working the Grey Cup last Sunday. And a letter of thanks for working it, but that's not the problem.
One: who the hell mails pink cheques to employees?! Especially since I use direct deposit!
Two: those sneaky buggers payed me out for the day so that it didn't count towards my weekly hours, meaning that I won't be paid overtime for working more than forty hours that week. Dirty out-of-wedlock-children!
They did pay me for one extra hour than I worked though. Didn't get OT on that either.
I'm going to hold my arguments in though, until I get paid on Friday. THEN I get get well and truly pissed off.
It started innocently enough: "Why does God care if we take off our hats, Grandma?" But the nosy ladies in the nearby pews couldn't bear to simply listen in, and the argument spread like ripples on a pond, out as far as the pulpit, where the pastor decided to squash the whole line of inquiry with some half-remembered philosophical word games from Descartes in which the objective truth of reality is used to prove the beneficence of God and vice versa, and culminates with "I think therefore I am." Pastor Rhiel even managed to work it into the thread of the sermon, but before he could go on, my shrill little voice answered from within the congregation.
Amazingly, my six-year-old brain had managed to assimilate all of Descartes' fairly tricksy riddles in as long as it took to describe them, and then went on to use those same arguments to prove the necessary cruelty of God, followed by the necessary nonexistence of the Supreme Being, and Grandma tried to take me home then, but the pastor - who'd apparently watched Jesuits play intellectual table tennis and recognised a natural when he saw one - called me to the pulpit, where I took on the entire congregation, singly and in bunches, as they assailed my reasoning and I built it back up, laying rhetorical traps that they blundered into with all the cunning of a cabbage.
Pastor Rhiel laughed and clarified the points when they were stuttered out by some marble-mouthed rhetorical amateur from the audience, then sat back and marveled as I did my thing. Not much was getting done vis-a-vis sermonizing, and there was still the communion to be administered, but God knew it had been a long time since the congregation was engaged so thoroughly with coming to grips with God and what their faith meant.
Afterwards, when I was returned to my scandalized, thin-lipped Grandma, Pastor Rhiel made a point of warmly embracing her and telling her that I was welcome at his pulpit any time, and suggested a future in the seminary. Grandma was amazed, and blushed under her Sunday powder, and the clawed hand on my shoulder became a caress.
note: none of the above may actually have happened
I still like to argue.
Sometimes to clarify what someone is saying, either for myself or for their benefit. Sometimes just for the sake of arguing.
And sometimes when I get frustrated. I'm not a big one for hitting walls, but I can let the force out of my mouth. God help you if I've been eating onions.
When I made it home last night (around 0200), I checked my mail. There was an envelope from work in there, which is odd. I got my renewed license earlier that same day so it couldn't be paperwork for that. I'd received the schedule for the next two weeks and my name was on that, so I wasn't fired. What could it be?
So I tore open the end and saw... a pink slip.
Rather, a pinkish slip of paper. It was a cheque. Get this:
It was pay for working the Grey Cup last Sunday. And a letter of thanks for working it, but that's not the problem.
One: who the hell mails pink cheques to employees?! Especially since I use direct deposit!
Two: those sneaky buggers payed me out for the day so that it didn't count towards my weekly hours, meaning that I won't be paid overtime for working more than forty hours that week. Dirty out-of-wedlock-children!
They did pay me for one extra hour than I worked though. Didn't get OT on that either.
I'm going to hold my arguments in though, until I get paid on Friday. THEN I get get well and truly pissed off.
posted by Rimmy at 13:06
3 Comments:
Man, society likes to bog you down and make you weak willed with things like this. If we keep hitting him with pain in the ass problems he will cease to struggle eventually.......they picked the wrong guy let me tell you ;)
Keep up the good work.
Fictional: I swear, I'm in a study where a team of hidden observers manipulate minor events to see what my capacity is. :P
Kibilz: Lots of forms of recourse. Going in and making a stink, going to the LRB... and various shades in between.
I'm enough of an individual not to need someone to speak *for* me. Are you? ;)
I'm just teasing you, Kibilz. :)
Besides, having a mouthpiece is for people unable to argue for themselves. If you can't be bothered to deal with it yourself, why should anybody grant you what you want?
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