IT
ISN'T EASY TO BE AN EPISCOPALIAN
Arms spread wide, Reverend
Molly Frankenbit raised her voice in a final crescendo. "A great evil wind blows
across America…"
A long, rippling flatulence
exploded from her backside, causing her to interrupt the sermon. The horrible blare filled the church, causing many parishioners
to push fingertips into their ear channels to block the attacking undulation. The
blast blew across the altar and invaded the great wooden cross, bounced off and flew into the organ pipes, startling the organist
into playing discordant notes as she pushed off the keyboard to jump to safety.
I laughed.
"Stop giggling!" mother warned and held her breath.
I didn't consider my laugh a giggle, but being a boy who took great delight in minding
his mother, I instead tried to hum the inharmonious organ notes, which turned out to be impossible. This made me laugh, until I realized my voice was the only sound present in the jam-packed church--my laughter
and the sound of the bombastic Molly wind. That moment brought a realization;
it's not easy being an Episcopalian.
Reverend Molly looked puzzled. "Did I break
wind?"
"You not only broke it, you destroyed it, discolored the cross bottom and melted three
organ pipes," I informed the lady in my loudest boy's voice. "I heard a sound
like that at the airport as a passenger plane took off." I was thirteen and had
a gift for oratory beyond others of my age. My poor mother, mortified, pulled
one fingertip from her ears so her hand could cover her open mouth. "But, Mom,
you asked me to stop giggling," I explained as the great cutting-of-the-cheese sound abated.
"It was a heathen gun from Hell," said Usher One, who was ninety-two and used to speaking
his mind. "You are a terrorist silencing our organ, blowing out our candles and
extinguishing our faith. If this is what it means to be an Episcopalian I'm moving
across the street to give the Catholics a try." He dropped the gold colored collection
deep-dish and marched to the great double doors. He turned and pointed to our
red-faced reverend. "Never in my ninety-two years seven months and six days have
I farted in church. Not once!"
"It's my first time,"
Reverend Molly Frankenbit pleaded. "Don't leave us, ancient Usher One. Who will collect the money?"
He had been Usher One since the church first opened its doors at the beginning of the First
World War. We had Usher Twos, but the turnover staggered the imagination. And that was the problem, they staggered. Apparently
they couldn't find a sober Usher Two. Usher One had often threatened to quit,
but usually gave up, finding the trip to the great double doors exhausting.
Usher Two, visiting from
the back room, staggered in place as we realized our dear Reverend Molly Frankenbit's rippling flatulence not only caused
damage, it brought with it the sulfur smell from hell. The congregation gasped
for air, gagging on the female fart from Hades, leaped to their feet and stampeded out the great double doors, knocking old
Usher One aside in their mad scramble to safety.
Only I and Reverend
Molly remained. Me, because of not wanting to stand and let it be seen that the
great fart startled me into wetting my pants. Our great leader stayed probably
because of being impervious to her own wind production effects.
That happened forty
years ago. The church and the congregation were never quite the same. Molly Frankenbit retired and her robes burned. The church
flew away, a victim of a great Mother Nature windstorm. They saved the majestic
wooden cross, refinished it and put it in the new church built on the same site. Those
into cross sniffing find the new finish has a slight sulfur odor.
As for me, I became an agnostic. Like I said, it isn't easy being an Episcopalian.
Don
P.S. You might ask why I wrote this fart
story using a church setting. I might answer, "Because that's where the pews
are." But I wouldn't do that, of course.
