Friday, December 12, 2008

Sister Mary Holy Water

I think it's hilarious that I'm working not only for a Catholic university but also for an obscure order of nuns. Then again, when it comes to orders of nuns, are there really any high-profile types? The most amusing part of all of this is that Slippy is responsible for both gigs. Neither of us is remotely holy, and she's not even Catholic. Not that I'm Catholic, either, but my mom is, and I think of Catholocism as being like a cultural thing that you're kind of born into. It's like the Guilt Club or the Hang-up Commitee. It may even be genetic. The whole thing is just funny.

My favorite part is how Juderonomy used to tease me when I was little, calling me Sister Mary Holy Water because, well, I was soft as baby shit and I was scared to death I was going to go to hell because one of the little dogmatic shits I went to school with informed me that "only real Catholics go to heaven. Everyone else goes to hell." That scared me because I knew I wasn't a real Catholic. In fact, my mother baptized me herself, and I was sure that a homemade baptism wouldn't hold up. So, I would take my sisters old CCD workbooks, appropriated one of my grandfather's rosaries and took it upon myself to secretly learn all the prayers and rosaries just in case, you know, I died and was faced with an eternity of hellfire and brimstone. It was a the spiritual version of my OCD handwashing spree. Come to think of it, it happened around the same time. Coincidence? You be the judge.

I was a rather sensitive child, and I think Jude was half touched by my sweetness and half concerned that the big bad world would chew me up and spit me out if I didn't toughen up a bit. Well, toughen up I did--to the extent that the mere idea of me working for nuns was counterintuitive to the point of inconceivable. I was telling some friends of mine about my new jobs. I hadn't seen them in about a year. I went to college with Sconsi and I've known his wife, Foxy, for about six years. When I told them what I'd been up to for the last few months, their mouths hung open. Sconsi finally said, "No one will believe me when I tell them that." Truth really is stranger than fiction.

6 comments:

Jude said...

Dear SMHW,..,the Big Bad world should be afraid,very afraid of you....But you did turn out quite well...to wit,working for Obscure Nuns( I don't recall that Order).

Nora said...

Haha, Jude, thank you. To quote James Brown, I don't know karate. I know crazy. With "crazier'n a shithouse rat" as my favored defense mechanism, I feel safe in this Big Bad World. It's kind of my spin on the whole self-defense notion that many attackers won't bother jumping women they think will cause too much trouble or attract too much attention. I took that concept, extrapolated and applied it to many situations in my life. Not with the nuns, though. No need for that. They think I'm just a nice, well-mannered lady with a penchant for writing and editing. I have no desire to disabuse them of that notion.

Anonymous said...

"...took it upon myself to secretly learn all the prayers and rosaries just in case..."

You were right to do this as I hear there is a pop quiz administered to everyone before they can enter Heaven!

Nora said...

Hey, Mike, neurotic kids like to cover all the bases.

Anonymous said...

Nice, well mannered lady? So your saying you haven't been wearing hooker boots to work?

Nora said...

I totally wore hooker boots to work one day. Busted.