Monday, November 18, 2013

Monday Morning Stories With Mookie - Episode 93

The Time Mookie Had An Unintended Encounter With A Dead Lady

My kids go to a parochial school, and as a consequence of this - once a week they have to attend a scheduled mass at school. If I were in their shoes, I'd take school over church any day of the week - including Sunday, but that is neither here nor there. Anyway....

Since it's at a school, the kids are usually involved in the service in some way - and sometimes are responsible for presenting a portion of the service. This particular day, my son's class was "in charge" of doing the prayer service - a shorter version of mass.

So I went and planned on sitting towards the back of the sanctuary with all the other parents. I had gotten there a few minutes early, so I stood in the lobby of the church waiting for the kids to show up and made small-talk with the principal that showed up to turn on the lights. As we talked, I watched as a van from a local flower shop pulled up and began to unload some flowers. The delivery man then brought the flowers into the lobby there where I was standing and set them on the floor over by a distant wall. I figured there might be a funeral service or something later that day, but didn't give it too much thought as the kids all started to show up for their prayer service.

The service went off as usual, and the kids all did great. I enjoy watching people in various settings, and from my seat the people watching was fairly entertaining. There was of course the random restless toddler that someone brought, who liked to escape their parents and make a run for the front. A toddler running at full-toddler speed is hilarious in itself, especially when they have a pacifier in their mouth and are making a dash for the pulpit with the embarrassed Mom giving chase. There was even that one douche parent using an iPad to video the service while their kid spoke. Seriously, does anything look stupider than someone holding up the equivalent of an 8X10 picture frame? For me, its worse than the 1980's VHS cameras that weren't far off from the TV newsman cameras. Yes I know the clarity is amazing, but dammit it looks stupid.

Finally the service ended, and when my my kid came running up to me I told him that he did a good job. Both the principal and my son's teacher thanked me for coming, and then in a hushed tone I heard the principal say something to the teacher along the lines of : "We need to take the kids out through the parish hall and not out the front as there is a funeral today." Again, I didn't think too much of this and was like "A-ha. I guessed right about the funeral today." So while the kids and teachers filed out the side door, I decided to head out the front door towards the parking lot. I opened the door of the sanctuary into the lobby, and quickly found out why the principal was adamant about the direction of the kids leaving.

Whoa. Hey What's up?
I looked up and to my left and holy shit...there was a casket sitting there! No one else was around - no caretakers, no mourners, no anybody. Just me and this big-ass wood casket. Thankfully it was shut and everything so I didn't have to actually SEE the deceased, but it was WEIRD. I looked around again and saw that no one else was there. I mean someone could have pushed the box out the door and took off rolling down the street. Immediately I started to feel guilty for just being there, and of course even more guilty for jokingly thinking about someone hijacking a casket. It didn't help matters that when I turned to leave - I noticed that someone had set up a "guest book shrine" by the front door. The shrine included a picture of a lady - the very same lady who I am willing to bet was the one in the box! Great, so now I have a picture of the face of the body in the box in my head now.
I was pretty much weirded out by this point, so needless to say - I had to get out of there.

During my walk to the car I felt so BAD because I didn't know this lady, and there she was - laying there dead and minding her own business - and here comes dumb ass Mookie wandering in - being all disrespectful by looking for a shortcut to the parking lot. But then....who was I to know there was a dead lady in the lobby? Plus, who just leaves a casket in a lobby by itself?  I mean really.

As I drove away, I had to laugh at the situation because after I thought about it....It was funny. I had literally just gone from kids singing happy church songs one minute, to seeing a dead lady in the lobby the very next. Who does that?  Me apparently. That's who.

I must add - What song was playing on the "80's-90's and Today" station when I turned on the car?
"Circle of Life."

Damn you Elton John.


Miss a previous episode?  Click HERE to see the list of episodes.



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