Correspondence: April 27, 2008

My mother is pretty gung-ho about her church stuff. But that’s not my cross to bear. I went with her to a Christian book store the other day. There was shelf after shelf of every kind of Bible you can think of and then a small section labeled “Non-Fiction.” I laughed!

Then the checkout lady was ringing up my mother’s purchase, she mentioned several kinds of Bibles and told us that a particular one was just for Jehovah’s Witnesses. And, when she said “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” she rolled her eyes. The very picture of tolerance. Then she said, “I guess they have to have a translation.” I thought, “What the hell do you think yours is, lady?”

I guess what made me think of that was that they don’t just carry Protestant stuff and I saw that you can buy communion wafers there by the box. So, you could take a box up to your niece and nephew and let them commune to their hearts’ content. Unless that’s not kosher.

… So, technically, since they’re unleavened, our Jewish friends could eat the Eucharist during Passover, couldn’t they? I’m going to have to get a box of those to see what they’re like. Would they be good with any kind of spread? They have priest shirts at that store, too. I may get one of those, too, since I can’t have a pope hat.

Conan O’Brien said this week, “It’s been reported that President Bush was so impressed with Pope Benedict’s recent visit, that after he leaves office Bush may convert to Catholicism. Bush said, ‘I’d convert right now, but Dick Cheney freaks out if you get near him with a cross.’”

Reach Out and Torch Someone

I guess the torch for the 2008 Olympics was in the U.S. this week. I was eating garlic chicken and reading the paper at Fortune Cookie, a lovely Chinese restaurant on Briarcliff, when I remembered the torch relay was in San Francisco that very day. And there I was giving my tacit support to the oppressors in Beijing as I gorged myself on fried rice and slurped their egg-drop soup. What an unsympathetic, socially unconscious jerk! So, when it came time to pay, I wrote, “Free Tibet” on the top of my credit slip and ran out. Yep, I’m a revolutionary!

Speaking of Olympic torches, someone asked me today if I’d seen the movie “Sherman’s March.” I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve heard of Sherman’s March. Who here hasn’t? That’s why I was so leery about the Olympics coming to Atlanta a few years ago. We all remember what happened the last time a foreigner came here with fire.