How to mess up in Church in one easy lesson

Is it even possible to mess up in Church? I hear you asking. Er, yes. Especially if you’re me!

I’ll start at the beginning. It was Easter time so just about everybody had a day off work. (Don’t you just love holidays?) Feeling like I should make an effort and attempt to get some exercise I put on a pair of strawberry red jogging pants and a t-shirt, and headed for what looked like some open fields in the distance. In reality I am not much of a jogger (practising this sport does jar one’s knees rather terribly after all – yes I know, any excuse is good) but more of a “quick walker” so off I went with my aquamarine coloured IPod at least looking the part even if I wasn’t quite succeeding at playing it.

In the distance I did find a field or two, but I also found a Catholic Church and by the way, ding-dong the bells they were a-chiming. I decided I could use a rest and as I had not been to a Church in a while, this was my chance. I’m not Catholic myself but I decided God probably wouldn’t mind and most probably neither would the Pope. I was going in! When I got inside it was freezing and there was nobody there except me. After a minute or two about half-a-dozen people were beamed up from their space ship. I figure this must have been what happened otherwise how could they suddenly have materialized from behind a stone pillar in the nave of the church? They all strode purposefully past me and one person who in the meantime had come and sat near me, joined them too. I thought to myself, ‘they must all be going to the front because a) there’s hardly anybody here and b) they probably have better heating up there.’ So what did I do? I joined them of course. We all trooped off in formation and installed ourselves behind the altar in wooden seats. I assumed that the priest would be carrying out a service facing the other way due to the limited number of the congregation.

As I looked around I couldn’t help but notice that everyone was dressed rather conservatively except me. Grey seemed to be the predominant colour and they all wore leather shoes so shiny, you could see your face in them when you looked down. I of course stood out like a sore thumb in my bright red jogging pants, t-shirt and trainers. Shortly afterwards a priest appeared and sat directly opposite us. ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘so this is how they do it in a modern Catholic Church. Well good for them!’ Only the priest didn’t say a word. He did however look in my direction with a twinkle in his eye. I felt quite flattered. Priest or not he did not deserve the label ‘fossil’ and in a distinguished kind of ‘keep your hands off ‘cos I’m holy’ way, he was even quite attractive. The other people on either side of me had nodded at first but hadn’t actually acknowledged me further than that. So we sat, and we sat, and we went on sitting and I was just thinking, ‘oh come on. Get on with it will you?’ when I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye. When I fastened my gaze onto the polar (yes it was that cold) part of the church I had previously been in, to my surprise I noticed five lowly church goers. It was then that it dawned on me. I WAS SITTING WITH THE CHOIR!

No wonder they hadn’t started. They were waiting for me to take my rightful place and it certainly wasn’t with them as a singer!

Now this happened in, wait for it………… Belgium. In case you didn’t know Belgium is renowned for its beer and chocolate. And you probably aren’t aware of this, but it is also the home of fries or chips as they are called in the UK. French fries, contrary to belief, did not originate in France, but in Belgium. Of course the Frenchies do live next door so you could hardly blame them for not only copying, but claiming this delightful speciality as something of their own making! In short, if you want to upset a Belgian, just say, “I’m so glad the French invented fries, don’t you just love them?” When you do this two things can happen. Either the Belgian will give you a disgusted look, walk away and you will never see him or her again, or you are likely not only to receive an education on the history of the (Belgian) fry as all good Belgians know it, but be expected to correct anyone else you might ever come across who dares to mistakenly believe that the French actually came up with this idea!

Back to the situation where just for a change, I dutifully messed up. Now if that had happened in the UK, someone would have leaned toward me with a smile and asked, “Are you in the choir love?” which of course would have given me a chance to tiptoe away gracefully. If it had happened in Germany they would probably not have been quite so diplomatic and may well have said something along the lines of, “Was tun Sie hier?” which roughly translated means, “what do you think you’re doing here woman?” I’m imagining an American might say something like, “well hi! I haven’t seen you here before. Do you come to choir practice often?” My point being, all these nationalities would have given me the chance to figure out I had messed up at the appropriate time whereas instead I ended up delaying the service by 10 minutes. You see, the minute I joined the real congregation, the service started and the choir began to sing vespers. (No I’m not going to tell you what vespers is. Google it if you’re curious!)

I’m pretty sure you are wondering the same thing I used to before I got to know the Belgians, which is ‘Why didn’t anybody say anything?’ Well I’ll tell you. I’ve been living here a while now, and I’ve come up with this theory. You will never meet a more diplomatic race than the Belgians! If your hair was on fire they would politely ask, “Can I get you a fire extinguisher?” before acting. Yet being diplomatic does have its advantages. For example supposing you painted the lousiest picture imaginable and asked a Belgian for his or her opinion, the most likely answer you would get is, “hmmm. Interesting.” Unlike some of us who are rather more direct and would probably say, “it’s terrible, but can I take it home just to keep the dog away from the fire?”

So sorry all you Belgians out there. I’m afraid I’ve let the cat out of the bag here. From today on the rest of the world knows that if a Belgian says, “interesting,” in English we can actually substitute that with, “it’s absolutely awful! Don’t give up the day job!”

So my final closing comment is, if you’re looking for a husband or wife who won’t tell you how terribly inadequate your efforts are when you practice your favourite hobby, marry a Belgian!

Dating sites? Who needs them? Just catch a bus!

Sometimes when you’re waiting for a bus, you don’t need an IPod. Take this example:

There’s a man, and there’s me and we’ve been standing there waiting for the bus about two minutes when out of nowhere he begins talking to me. The first thing out of his mouth is, “They’re all dead you know!” I say, “Excuse me?” He looks at me slightly irritated as if to say, ‘how can you not get what I’m telling you about? It’s simple.’ He then goes on to say, “The people in that building opposite,” and points to a block of flats on the other side of the road. I raise one eyebrow enquiringly only to wish I hadn't because I am then honoured with the complete run-down. “The woman on the ground floor, she died of a stroke, and then the man in 2B he got run over. Run over,” he adds with a bit more emphasis. "One minute he was here, and the next whack, (he claps his hands for emphasis) that was him totalled!” I manage a polite, “Really?” which gives him a further cue to continue with his tirade. “Now the one on the 5th floor,” he shakes his head, moves a little closer to me and with a conspiratorial tone almost as low as a whisper, says, “did herself in, she did! Suicide! Never even made it to 30!”

Well I’m as friendly as the next person but what do you say to someone who talks to you in this way? To be perfectly honest I was rather stumped. I imagine some of that person’s “cheese had slid off their cracker,” (what a wonderful American expression that is! I love it!) or should I say, he might have been “a couple of pence short of a pound,” so in the end I just smiled indulgently and thankfully was rescued from hearing more hairy tales by the arrival of the bus. I was just praying that he wouldn’t come and sit near me and continue in the same vein. Luckily he seemed to snap into another mode and the task of showing his bus pass to the driver and finding a seat seemed to occupy his mind sufficiently for him to forget that he’d taken me into his confidence in the first place. With that, I heaved a sigh of relief and enjoyed a peaceful journey home.

There have of course been other times when strange things have happened to me on buses. Like the time I noticed a younger man watching me. I thought to myself, ‘Perhaps I remind him of someone. His mother maybe?’ When it was time for me to get off the bus, guess what? He got off too. He looked directly at me and I thought, oh no, here it comes, the 4 most commonly boring questions a girl gets asked by a guy (sorry guys but it you ask these questions when you meet a girl I’ll give you a tip. Please, please think of something a little more original will you? )
Ladies, we all know what they are don’t we? ‘What’s your name, where are you from, what do you do for a living and what are you doing tonight? Well, you could have knocked me sideways when I heard his question. It was none of the above.
The first thing to come out of his mouth was, “Are you ready to be saved by Jesus Christ our Lord?” So there I am standing in the middle of the street not being hit on as I had assumed but being thumped on, biblically that is! On second thoughts those 4 questions I just called unoriginal are beginning to sound attractive all of a sudden! Now I have nothing against someone practicing religion, just as I have nothing against those who don’t practice anything. We should all be free to make our own choices. Myself, I’m not afraid to admit I go to Church most Sunday’s. It’s not the fact that a person speaks to me about religion that bothers me, it's how they do it. In this case I perceived it as an invasion of my personal space and that I found annoying. I see absolutely no reason why I should have to tell a total stranger my religious beliefs nor can I accept that it’s any of his business. I believe that if a person wants to investigate religion they should be allowed to do so by following their own instincts and choosing where and with whom they want to explore it themselves. I hate people who try to force things on me and the more they do it the more rebellious I become. Sorry to say this was one of those times when I wished I had caught an earlier or later bus.

On a lighter note, probably the most unusual incident ever happened the day I received a marriage proposal. Yes, I know it's hard to believe, but I actually did get a marriage proposal from a total stranger at two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon on a bus full of shoppers heading home with their purchases.

As it was a Saturday and there were very few spare seats I ended up sitting in one of those 4 seater arrangements where two seats face another two. Opposite me sat a man who vaguely reminded me of the Wild man of Borneo except his hair was grey, he was clothed and wearing glasses that resembled bottle bottoms. The lenses were those really thick ones. Have you ever noticed that people that wear those have really tiny eyes? I’m never quite sure, is it the lens that makes their eyes tiny or are they born like that? I’ve never actually had a friend who wears that kind of glasses so I’m still unsure. Let me know if you have the answer!

Anyway, back to the story.

So there I am, as usual, minding my own business when all of a sudden the man opposite leans toward me and asks, no shouts, judging by the reactions of the other passengers, “Are you married?” Well a lot of strangers have asked me questions in my time, like, “excuse me but do you know where the bathroom is?” and hey, I don’t have a problem with that, but to bluntly ask “Are you married?” that’s definitely a new one! I took a moment to think how to react to that question and felt the air charged with people’s bated breath as they all pretended to look out of windows but in reality, they couldn’t wait to hear what my answer would be. Finally I said, “What business is it of yours!” and immediately regretted it because I felt like I had been mean. It is somehow a kind of a bitchy answer isn’t it? Fortunately for me the man took it in his stride and continued as though I had never even commented. “I’ve got a house you know,” he told me. “A big house!” He stretched out the word big so it sounded like BIIIIG just so I could absorb the implications. (This man didn’t just have any house, no sir; he had a BIG house with lots of rooms if you please!)
“I’m looking for a woman just like you to come and live in it with me so I don’t have to rattle around in there on my own any more!” he continued. I was just staring at him with a ‘froggy’ expression, my eyes positively bulging out of their sockets. I’d heard the words but my brain hadn’t quite computed them. Meanwhile some of the passengers even had the audacity to stop looking out of the windows and start looking at us. I’m sure they were thinking to themselves, ‘this is better than Desperate Housewives only here we have a desperate would-be husband!’ Unperturbed the man continued and actually had the nerve to pose the question, “Can you cook?” I felt like saying, 'No (although that’s not true) but I am good with frying pans. It’s the thudding sound that’s so gratifying when it makes contact with someone’s skull.' But of course I kept that thought to myself. I was just wondering whether or not I should get off that bus and wait for the next one when a fresh wave of passengers got on. You have to ask yourself here, 'Just how unlucky can a woman be?' because another odd looking man not only sat next to the one who proposed marriage to me but actually dared to smile at me hoping for some encouragement on my part. I waited no longer. I jumped up like a scalded cat and positively ran to the door. For a moment I had visions of a hysterical woman (me) banging on the bus door and shouting “Stop, stop, this is a matter of life and death! I need to get off this bus right now!” but luckily I could contain myself till the next stop and guess what? Neither of them followed me. I do believe I heaved the greatest sigh of relief known to man throughout history.

In short I’m beginning to wonder. Are buses really safer than cars?

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions readers.