Childlike

Chapter 9 Saved by the Smell in Carmel

Chapter 9

Saved by the Smell in Carmel

            “No alcohol, no drugs, no Coca Cola, no coffee, no tea, no dancing on Sundays, no sex on Sundays, no television, no R or X rated movies…heck, it’d be easier for them to list the things you can do,” Mick laughed, taking his cheek and giving it a flop, flop.

“They worship me in vain choosing to worship rules taught by men, or something like that,” Missy said, blowing a bubble with her gum.  Mick and I ignored her.

It had been almost six weeks since my initial lesson at Yvonne’s.  Since that time I had had three more lessons each with additional rules and precepts for me to learn.  Each time I had prayed with Elder Jimmy and Elder Ronny. Each time I had declined to sign the membership agreement, though each time I had gotten to know Yvonne a little more.  Now in Poly-Sci she sat next to Mick and I; the body builder having already dropped out. 

“You know, I don’t think this girl cares a whole lot for you personally,” Mick said one day after class.  “I get the feeling that she wants to assimilate you into her church and then go on to someone new.”

I told him then that I didn’t think that was the case but now I was beginning to wonder.  It was something she had said at the end of our last lesson.  She asked me why I hadn’t signed the membership application thatstated I would agree to pay 20% of my income to the church, but also insisted that I follow all the rules that Mick had just rambled off.  I told her that I was waiting for all the lessons to finish but she countered by stating that most of her prospects had signed the agreement after the second lesson.

In the long run, holding off benefited me for Yvonne suggested that we go out on a date this Friday night, which I readily agreed too.

            “So, you going to sign it?”  Missy asked, still chomping away at her piece of gum from the backseat of the Cortina.

            “I don’t know,” I answered her.  “I don’t feel convicted one way or another.  Personally, from what I’ve seen at the Church, I think that it’s all a bunch of hocus pocus, give me your money!  I don’t sense any particular presence of God there.”

            “It’s the girl,” Mick said.

            “Huh?”

            “That girl is making you go,” Missy added for clarification.  “You wouldn’t be going if it weren’t for that red head.”

            “I might!”  I objected not too convincingly, sounding a bit weak even to myself.

            “Right! The way you describe Sunday mornings there, it sounds like a circus instead of a church,” Mick said as Missy filled the car with a loud fart followed by an odor like rotten eggs.

            “Oh my lands,” Mick ejected rolling down the passenger side window and letting the freeway air in. “I don’t believe it!”

            “Oops!” Missy giggled. “I’ve got gas!”

            “Duh!” Mick yelled over the sound of the wind drag.

            It was a warm early November day and we were on our way to Carmel to enjoy the sun and the coastline.  It was Mick’s idea, and we all readily agreed to go, piling into my Cortina, Missy in the back, Mick in the passenger seat and me driving.  Fortunately this was Missy’s first fart of the day. Unfortunately it wouldn’t be her last.

            “I can’t believe how something so rotten could come out of someone so cute,” Mick had said to me on the many occasions that I complained to him about Missy’s flatulence.  This was his first experience with her gas and I could see that he was taking it as well as I usually did.