Last Sunday, for a variety of reasons having to do with being on point and everybody being sick, I was especially raw when suiting up for battle with the beastie boys of the UU church. I've taught UU Sunday school before, and faced a lot of cheekiness. I've told myself, UU parents are anti-authoritarian, and that's a good thing. You can expect the kids to be high-spirited, but they grow into the kind of teenagers who give punk concerts to raise money for Darfur, so it all works out in the end.
Well, this day I faced outright declarations of war on me and the other substitute and I lost it, rooting the kids out of the bathroom where they were hiding out, confiscating skateboards and physically shoving them into place. I finally cracked and let them out, not because we were done but because short of actually locking them in the room I didn't think I could hold them any longer.
So then I went back over to the church to catch the tale end of the coming-of-age service, which is like UU bar mitzvah where early high schoolers develop their spiritual bearings. The one girl was up there saying that her philosophy was why be a good-goody. Why, for that matter, spend her days participating in a church program. Why think about money. After all, if you spend your time studying to be a doctor or something, you'd get to be a rich doctor but you'd have missed the best years of your life. Just have a good time. [Polite applause].
I was the angriest dog in the world. After all, the main argument for us even joining this smarty-pants church is to give the kids a respite from the nihilism that reigns in their lawless school. And then to find it rampant here. I was sputtering.
And then Jones threw up in the Sunday school room. Shoulda just. stayed. home.
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