I'm going to bed now.
When God created man She was premenstral.
Or drunk. Or hungover.
Perhaps she was hungover because she was premenstrally drinking.
She also didn't like the Irish very much.
My own Leprechaunian lineage is a case in point.
"Gaelic f*ckerrrrrrrrrrrrs!," She cried as She flattened a face, pugged a nose and inserted a bad temper.
(I may have made that last bit up because I'm sure that God doesn't swear and I'm unsure whether I need to be nice about Her because I'm meant to be Catholic and being guilty goes with the territory and I don't want to end up in Purgatory for eons).
Whenever someone in our family
Someone should have spayed Mad O'Callaghan back when he was a Fomhoire cavorting with evil faeries, giants and leprechauns. I'm sure we could have avoided at least one world war and possibly the spread of the bubonic plague.
Whenever one of our relatives is
I merely blame the O'Callaghans for my stumpy legs, manic depression and sexual attraction to paper clips.
It is interesting to note that whilst God quite obviously didn't like the Irish, the Irish are exceedingly obsequious when it comes to God. Kind of like an abused dog.
You need only consider the potato famine and Angela's Ashes to conclude that the Irish servility in the face of The Almighty is kind of perverse.
(It may also account for the fact that the Irish also drink more alcohol per capita that any nation in the developed world).
Take for instance the pop star status of the Parish Priest.
In days gone by the having Father Finnegan at the dinner table was akin to getting a passport straight to Heaven with no purgatorial stop-overs.
Whilst extra white sauce on the corned beef probably saved a dozen or so souls, slipping Father Finnegan a fiver with his after-dinner sherry was a gold plated guarantee of a five star suite in the House of Many Mansions.
And that is how I came to stab a priest.
Well I wanted to, but it was my grandfather's funeral, which called for a level decorum of which I am not particularly renowned.
Ol' Father Altarwinebreath was pontificating hellfire and brimstone and the whole "Let's-hope-dear-old -(insert name)-doesn't-get-stuck-in-purgatory-too-long" thing when he took a long meaningful look at my grandmother's purse.
My pulse quickened as the demon within (lets call him Legion) stirred. Veins pulsed in my temples and my talons extended. It was all I could do not to leap upon the pulpit and rip out the mercenary bastard's jugular. Perhaps it was just the garlic necklace that saved his life.
*sigh* the plasticity of religious protocol.
Except when it comes to Methodists. With Methodists you can be a teetotalling Sunday School teacher who prays every night, never has sex, wears a hair shirt and self flagellates and still end up burning in hell.
With the Catholics anything goes, provided you can turn a blind eye and hand over your credit card details (the Vatican has now approved PayPal).
One of my ancestors, Seamus O'Callaghan, bludgeoned fifteen grannies with his fiddle at a County Clare bingo night**. Whilst he did spend some time languishing at Her Majesty's leisure, he was completely absolved of his sin. Why? Because he went to confession and his family agreed to sign over their house (and all firstborn sons for the next millenia) to the Church.
It goes something like this:
One child handed to the Church = 15 hours of prayer;
15 hours of prayer = 5 days less in Purgatory.
It's rather an expensive exercise, considering Purgatory is where you stay for infinity unless someone prays you out of it. Obviously priest prayers are more effective than the prayers of parishoners.
It's a bit like clerical prostitution, but more delicately referred to as simony (buying or selling ecclesiastical preferments) and indulgences.
This is precisely why I choke on communion bread and morph into a Wolverine whenever someone mentions the words, Catholic, priest, nun, convent, manse, rosary, church, mass, Virgin Mary, virgin birth, immaculate conception and peace-be-with-you.
The only time I genuflect is at the gym facing Madam Lash.
Not that I'm bitter.........about the 12 years I spent locked in a convent with hirsute nuns and having to attend mass twice a week.I just have a bit of a tic.
And I'm sexually attracted to paperclips.
Anyhooo, in other news.....
Anyone who knows me will know that my all-time favorite book is the Bible (I said that in case God is reading and She may reconsider banishing me to Hell) and my second most favorite, despite the fact I can't spel, is the Macquarie Dictionary. So from now on we are going to have......drum rolll.......
Word of the Day
(and a personal favorite)
Diamantiferous: adj. containing diamonds.
Now, I want you to all go away and use this word at least once today. My example will be:
"Humphrey, you may shower me with gifts, so long as they are diamantiferous."
You may choose something completely different like:
"Oh look, junior has done something diamantiferous in his nappy."
Or if you are at an office meeting you can say:
"What a diamantiferous idea!"
Everyone will buy you drinks after work because you're super intelligent because you use big words AND know what they mean AND your boss will be so impressed you'll probably get a raise.
**I might have made that up.
Next Week: A post about Atheism and why I adhere to the principles of it if it suits me.
Every word delicious. I was 12 years old ya know when I adopted atheism.
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