Elmo
I read back over the email, typed in [email protected] and clicked Send. At least, I assumed that was her email address.
The email notification chime sounded on my new laptop while I was looking over my hospital visitation slips and planning the rest of my day. Less than an hour for her to respond. Gotta be a good sign. Of course, a wise old saying states (and I euphemistically paraphrase), “assumptions make us look like rear-ends.”
The return email came from Bonnie all right, but not that Bonnie. It was from Bonnie, the First Church librarian. We have a church librarian named Bonnie? I didn’t even know we had a church librarian! I DIDN’T KNOW WE HAD A CHURCH LIBRARY!
I grimaced as I opened the email.
Dear Elmo,
I’m flattered by your dinner invitation, and though I was momentarily tempted to accept it, to be honest, I’m not sure Ralph, my husband of 40 years, would understand.
Something tells me you meant to send this message to Bonnie St. Hiliare. Her email address is [email protected]
Besides, whenever I eat Spanish food it gives me awful indigestion.
Thanks anyway,
Bonnie Johnstone
Church Librarian
All of a sudden, I had indigestion. Who would’ve thought—a church librarian with a sense of humor? Now there’s an anomaly. I emailed back an apology and resent my invitation to the correct Bonnie.
Sitting there in the shadow of my own embarrassment for a few moments, I pondered the humiliation I would surely be suffering thanks to my email screw-up. Or maybe I’d catch a break and Bonnie-the-librarian would take pity on me and keep this our little secret. The kind of secret held between friends and only ever acknowledged by a subtle smile or mischievous wink.
As I was wallowing in self-pity, a glinting flash of light caught my eye from across the utility closet. Just a pinpoint of light, but extremely bright nonetheless. I could only see it if I held my head just so. Whatever was giving off the light was small, and it was just barely protruding from behind the left corner of an old metal supplies shelf against the wall.
Getting up to investigate, I noticed that one of the curtains had been pushed back, allowing a car windshield in the parking lot beyond the dumpster to bounce the midday sun directly through my window. It reflected off this object behind the shelf. Approaching the shelf, I could now see the corner of something metallic and shiny. I gave it a tug, pulling it free from a crack in the wall. Just an old foil wrapper from a stick of chewing gum. Maybe Juicy Fruit? Doublemint? I started to crumple it up to toss in the trash when I noticed there was some writing on the inside. In blue ink, someone had written,
“I told you that is what he would do. You should have taken my advice. Now you’ll have the devil to pay!” — T.B.T.
It was dated May 17th, 1959.
That’s odd. I was too intrigued to just throw it away, so I put the wrapper in my wallet and made a mental note to drop in on old Fred Snooker.
A knock on my door reverberated around my shabby chic walls, startling me.
“Just a second,” I said as I walked across the room. Opening the door, I was shocked to find Bonnie. (No, not Bonnie-the-librarian. That would be way too weird).
She smiled. “Hey, Elmo. Got your email.”
“And you responded in person,” I voiced out loud.
Awkward. We stood there in silence for several seconds.
“Well, are you going to invite me in?” She was still smiling.
“To be honest, I’m not quite sure the correct protocol for a male staff member inviting a female staff member into a church closet.”
Her eyes widened as she started to laugh, then abruptly stopped. “You know, you’re probably right, Elmo. I’d hate for either of us to jeopardize our jobs over some dumb misperception by a janitor or, I don’t know, maybe the church librarian?”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Count me in for Friday night. Pick me up at 6:30.” She tossed me the aforementioned mischievous wink then delivered her final barb. “I’ll email you my street address and phone number.” And with that she was gone.
I soon discovered that “Bonnie-the-church-librarian” was a charter member of First Church’s Gossip Hall of Fame.
Ouch.
The Walking Wedgie
Since almost the beginning of my internship, I’d been assigned hospital visitation. Making cold calls on people I didn’t know, who didn’t know me, was more than a little outside my comfort zone. The staff at First Church not only visited its members who were in the hospital, but also anyone else who either called in requesting a visit for themselves or for a friend or neighbor. Requests even came from out of state asking us to visit folks in our local hospitals. We had nine hospitals in our city, so the staff had divided them into three zones. Each staff member was assigned a zone and a day of the week for making hospital visits. Through a very unfortunate draw, I got Mondays. Hospitals are always jammed on Mondays.
After pondering this Monday phenomenon for a while, I formulated a theory. I identified several interesting, though unrelated reasons why so many bodies ended up in the hospital on Monday mornings.
First, I conjectured that most people tend to be more reckless on the weekends. Whether at wild parties or family picnics, people are just more careless about where they put their feet and what they put in their mouths on weekends.
Second, in my opinion, most people hate their jobs. So to enter the hospital
on a Saturday would be an abject tragedy. Why? It consumes a day off or even two. Whereas, waiting to enter the hospital on Monday could render three to five days away from the office or factory. This alone, I decided, was enough motivation for many very sick individuals to hold on until Monday morning before they headed to the emergency room.
Whatever the actual reasons, I always ended up with a fist-full of visitation slips on Monday morning. The routine was pretty much the same for each visit. Locate the correct room (not always an easy task), identify the patient to be visited, make a brief introduction, an even briefer visit, then close with a quick prayer. Start to finish, five minutes tops. Often the patients were sedated or asleep, so I would pray for them silently then leave my card.
My last visit on this particular Monday was a little more unusual. I found Ramona Muscarella comatose in ICU and very near death. Praying quietly for her and her family, I left my card and exited. Ramona didn’t attend our church; she’d simply asked for a visit from a Protestant minister. One of the nurses had called First Church with the request.
Ramona died soon after my visit. I would never have known, except the family saw my card and called the church asking for me to do her funeral. This would be my first official funeral. It would also be a bit more complicated than I would’ve wished. Religiously, Ramona had been the black sheep in her family. The Muscarellas were Italian Roman Catholics. As in every family member for five generations had been Roman Catholic. For reasons never fully explained to me, Ramona had left the Catholic faith to become a Baptist. She had also raised her kids as Baptists. Needless to say, her conversion to Protestantism created quite a stir for her extended family.
Ramona would be laid to rest at the Italian Gardens Cemetery. I would do the graveside service for her. I figured there might be a dozen people there. Over one hundred showed up. Not familiar with the Italian Gardens Cemetery, I’d never even been to that part of town. The old cemetery looked like something out of a Francis Ford Coppola movie. It was tucked on a one-acre lot, way back in a bad part of the city. There was an eight-foot stone wall around the entire property with big wrought iron gates in the front. To enter the cemetery, a visitor would first have to walk through a mausoleum full of marble-veneered crypts. Huge Italian marble and granite grave markers filled the cemetery, some ten or fifteen feet high. The place had to be at near capacity. It was so crowded, it resembled the back lot of a tombstone/grave marker store.
My first funeral. I was extremely nervous.
So nervous, I didn’t even realize I had accidentally attached my back suspenders to my boxer shorts instead of my suit pants. Subsequently, I ended up with a two-hour walking wedgie. Further complicating matters, a bad storm rolled in about an hour before the funeral. By the time I arrived, it was an absolute downpour, so we moved the graveside service into the mausoleum.
There I was, this punk Protestant intern doing my very first funeral, jammed into the middle of an overcrowded passageway full of wet, bereaved Roman Catholic Italian-Americans. I kept scanning the crowd looking for Al Pacino. The closed coffin sat in the middle of the mausoleum floor with the mourners tightly squeezed all around it. I stood at the head of the coffin, all eyes on me.
No pressure.
I opened my Pastoral Ministry for Dummies handbook (the one Tom Applebee had given me) to the section entitled “Funerals by the Numbers.” As I glanced down at the outline, I determined I should make a few comments before I read the prepared service. Such a profound moment under such extraordinary circumstances just demanded a little additional effort on my part.
Silently praying for wisdom, I started quietly. “I did not know Ramona the way you all knew Ramona. I visited with her only once, briefly, right before she died. However, I have since learned that she was a lady of great courage and faith. Though many of you may have disagreed with the choices she made in life, you still honor her here today with your presence. Life is like a grand revolving door. You have people entering it from one side, people exiting it from the other, and the rest of us are inside pushing it around. Ramona has made her break from this life leaving us with the message to keep pushing on.”
Then, returning to the scripted service, I completed the funeral.
I decided funerals were not my favorite thing to do, but I was relieved I’d survived my first one. Several of the Muscarella family members came by afterward to shake my hand and thank me, some with tears in their eyes. It was the first time I had provided comfort to some hurting people. It felt good. Perhaps God could use me in a ministry capacity.
But, first I had to get home and figure out what was wrong with my boxer shorts.
The Intimacy Zone
Friday afternoon arrived, and I was running late. Erlene Markham had made a surprise drop-in visit to The Closet. Two hours later, I finally convinced her to head home in order to miss the afternoon rush-hour traffic from the city.
Why they continue to let people her age and frame of mind drive is beyond me. I can just see her looking through the steering wheel, squinting to see if the light is red or green. Yikes.
Exhausted from her visit, I finally made it home to my apartment, but completely out of time to get ready for my date with Bonnie. What to wear, what to wear. I sound like such a girl. Okay, think. Casa Verde doesn’t allow jeans. I’ll have to wear a jacket and tie. I selected khaki Dockers, a white oxford cloth button-down shirt; a “warm and sensitive guy” pastel green tie, and a navy-blue sport coat. If Bonnie bails on me, I can always hang around at the restaurant and park cars. I’m certainly dressed for the part.
Time to run down the pre-date Elmo checklist:
Hair just right—check
Teeth brushed—check
Antiperspirant—check
Dangling nose hair removed—check
Okay, gotta go, gotta go, gotta go. I estimated a twenty-five-minute drive from my place to Bonnie’s apartment, and it was just now six o’clock. This gave me ample drive time to review the Do’s-and-Don’ts of a First Date. Though not a comprehensive list, it’s just some commonsense ideas I’ve gleaned from years of suffering through Singles seminars. Picking my favorite relationship concepts, I cobbled them into what I call Elmo’s First Date Strategy:
1. Be a good listener. Look at your date while she’s talking. You must actually hear what she’s saying instead of formulating your next response.
2. Never pass judgment on her opinions. There will be time for give-and-take on subsequent dates—if more actually occur.
3. Don’t run your mouth. The Bible says a man of few words is considered wise. Let her form her initial opinion of you based on what you don’t say.
4. It’s not about me. Ask questions about her, her work, her family, her faith. Show genuine interest in her responses. Compliment her clothes and appearance and mean it. Respond to her questions about you in a brief and humble manner. Keep the focus on her.
5. Be a gentleman. Open doors for her, chew with your mouth closed, and avoid vulgar language.
I could feel my confidence rising. Then, in stormed the requisite reality check. I remembered, after all, that I was Elmo Jenkins, a modern-day Barney Fife. Either James Dobson or Dr. Phil would need to come along to hold my hand, and give me play-by-play instructions. Since neither of them would be available on short notice, I decided to give Thurm a call. He could help; after all he had a girlfriend—the lovely Alise. I gave the auto-voice command, “Thurm the Worm,” and my cell phone quickly dialed his number.
“Hello?” I could barely hear Thurm over the loud music in the background.
“Thurm, this is Elmo!” I yelled. “Turn off your tunes!”
“Okay, just a second.” The music stopped. “Hey, Elmo. What’s up?”
“I need some advice, buddy. I’m on my way over to pick up Bonnie for our date.”
“The church librarian?” he chortled.
Before I could respond, I heard the loud screeching of tires as the car in front of me slammed on its brakes. Dropping the cell phone, I swerved to the left, just missing a Beamer in the lane next to me. Whew!
Retrieving the phone with my heart still racing, I gasped, “Thurm? Are you still there?”
“Elmo! Are you okay? What happened?”
I took a deep breath. “. . . A near accident—waaaay too close for comfort!”
“You might wanna check out your shorts.” With Thurm, the jokes never stopped.
“Listen, I need you to step out of character for a second and give me some serious advice,” I said, almost pleading.
“Sure, Elmo. How can I help?” Before I could respond, he jumped back in. “Sorry, I need to put you on hold for a second. I have another incoming call. It’s Alise.”
Thurm had programmed his cell to play music for those on hold. As I waited, ABBA sang “Fernando.” Thurm, lay off the cheesy music.
“Elmo, whatcha need? I only have a minute or two. Alise is coming over, and I need to power-clean my cave.”
“Thurm, I need a little pre-date help. What is it that women really want from a relationship?”
“One word: intimacy. Any time women are surveyed about the relationship stuff, intimacy always comes in at #1.”
“Okay . . . but what does intimacy actually mean in this context?”
“Elmo, I have no idea. Sorry, but I’ve gotta run. I’ll ask Alise when she gets here.” And he hung up.
Yeah, that helped a lot. Looks as if I’m on my own.
Intimacy. Right.
Just what I needed—a “fatal abstraction.”
I knocked on Bonnie’s door. She stepped out, and I said she looked nice. And she did. She then said I looked nice. And I did. On the drive over to Casa Verde, we made small talk about small things.
Making a snap decision, I let the valet park the car. It cost ten dollars, and I’d have to skip lunch one day next week to cover the extra expense. But first impressions are uber-important. I didn’t want to come across as a tightwad (even though that’s exactly what I am). Granted, it was a duplicitous move, and even though I consider myself a moral person, I do allow for the occasional small breach.
We were led to a cozy booth near the back of the Garden Room where we had complete privacy. As we settled in, our waitress appeared.
“Buenas noches,” she said, smiling. “My name is Maria.” She was definitely not of Latin origin. “May I get you something to drink?”
“I’d like iced tea with lemon, please,” Bonnie said without hesitation.
I’d
recently read an article online about the dangers of ordering iced tea in public eating establishments. Evidently, most tea leaves are grown in third-world countries with little or no sanitary regulations. Subsequently, it’s imperative that the water be brought to a boil to kill the many different types of bacteria residing in the tea leaves.
After summarizing this issue, I asked Maria, “Do you all boil the water when making your tea?”
“Oh yes,” Maria answered with a naughty grin. “We practice safe tea at Casa Verde.”
“Okay then,” I said mildly embarrassed. “I’ll have the iced tea also.” And we all shared a good laugh, which I considered a good sign. A few minutes later, Maria came back and took our food orders.
It occurred to me—we were about ready to enter The Intimacy Zone. I wasn’t rattled, just understandably a little nervous. The obligatory greetings, small talk, and food orders had come and gone. Now it was crunch time. Everything would be won or lost during this segment of the evening. Historically, this is where I always fumbled the ball. Which explains why I, Elmo Jenkins, had never kissed a girl. I could never get past this unscripted “Q&A” section of a date without screwing up. I’d either offend my date or totally humiliate myself, taking down the entire male gender with me.
Taking a preemptive tack, I decided to prepare her for the worst. “Bonnie, are you familiar with the song “My Stupid Mouth” by John Mayer? You know, the one about a guy who ruins a dinner date by shooting off his mouth? Yeah, well, John called me before he wrote that song to make sure he got all the details correct.”
Bonnie laughed boisterously. “Now, there’s a new approach! What is this, some type of pre-conversation disclaimer? So now you can’t be held liable for stupid comments, lousy opinions, or offensive remarks?”
Ordained Irreverence Page 6