Tuesday, August 18, 2009

There's Only You And Me....And We Just Disagree

Ordinarily, Church doesn't qualify as a contentious experience for me. Ordinarily.
However, one of the speakers last Sunday touched on a viewpoint so incredibly outrageous and just plain wrong that I couldn't help but loudly vocalize my concern.
So there I was, perfectly in control of my attention span-challenged self and doing what I do most every Church meeting......dreaming about possible post-Church dinner recipes to try.
That's when the Sister assigned to speak interrupted my food fantasies with the most troubling of questions.
Sister Skinny actually articulated the following sentence: "Wouldn't it be great if you only had to cook and eat ONE time a week and that would be enough to sustain you?"
Flinging my precious few tidbits of self-control to the ravenous self-control eating wolves encircling my Church chair, I loudly bellowed a feisty "HECK, NOOOOOOOO" in response.
(Folks, I do, in fact, have Self Control. It's track 212 in my iPod library. I love me some Laura Branigan.)
Papi quickly shot me the Mexi-eye which is 100 times spicier and meaner than your average, ordinary stink eye. Think a laser beam made out of Tabasco.
The congregants seated behind us tittered with semi-reverent hushed laughter while my oldest son nodded his head in silent agreement with me.
The truth is, that for the Infidel family, we discuss what to eat for our next meal while we're eating a meal. I can't tell you the square root of 1,04,000 or tell you who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong but I can probably recite every momentous food occasion I've ever participated in during the course of my 35 years.
I'd like to bear my testimony that eating can indeed be a very spiritual experience.
Not coincidentally, Sister Skinny is but a mere white waif of a woman.
She was immediately stricken from my mental list of potential Buffet Buddies. I'm guessing Sister Skinny's a one-plater kind of gal and not a Leaning Tower Of Melamine Dishes chick like me.
Hey, I may not wear a size negative zero but at least I always have a cheery rosy red glow to my cheeks--unlike Sister Skinny's saltine cracker pallor. Of course, the energy exerted from bending over to pick up a hymn book causes my skin to flush and turn scarlet with the mere strain of it all.
Sure, my outburst qualifies me as a contender in the Rude Olympics, but hey, that's what Sister Skinny gets for treating Sacrament meeting like it's some sort of audience participation event.
You shouldn't weave questions into your talk unless you want people to actually answer you.
She's fortunate we're not Evangelicals because if she'd followed up her most horrifying query with a peppy "Can I Get An AMEN All Up In Here, People??!?!?" I'm thinking she would've most likely been met with awkward silence.
My favorite first counselor to the Bishop--and Secret Agent Man with the F.B.I--once made the following remark a few years ago: "We're not a charismatic Church."
As I panned around the Chapel and noted a good 50-60% of the members (mostly male) nodding off or already zonked out, I had to murmur an emphatic "Right On Brother Obvious, you got that one nailed...."
He knew how to make an impactful statement dripping with truth.
I'm thinking that Food Network is not Must See T.V. for Sister Skinny. She likely doesn't worship at the altar of Alton Brown, either and she'd never, ever run away to become a Gordon Ramsay groupie. Ever.
It's an eat-or-be-eaten world out there. I fear for Sister Skinny. Maybe us larger folks are here on earth to protect the dainty among us from harmful things like sudden gusts of wind or evil food.
In which case, I take my duties very seriously.
I shall sacrifice myself and rid all the world of Hostess cupcakes.......one delicious morsel at a time.

23 comments:

Nancy Face said...

"The truth is, that for the Infidel family we're dreaming of what to eat for our next meal while we're eating a meal."

I am soOOo with you, sistah! :D

Nancy Face said...

Food is my LIFE. Hmmm...how long until lunch?

Lisa said...

I've been thinking about lunch all morning!

Stacey said...

Now I have that song in my head.
"Ooo..ooo...ooo-oo...oh,oh,ohhhhh".

I just had lunch, now I'm thinking about snack time. If I think about snack time,I want a cookie. If I think about cookie,I want candy. Mmmm,candy.

jams o donnell said...

One meal a week? Let me try that with her and I'll be gnawing on her bones in a few days.. not that there's much meat on her by sounds of it!

Jami said...

"Right on, Brother Obvious..." My son began mocking my snorts of laughter right after I read that line.

I'm still on your buffet buddies list, right? I can join you in competitive dish accummulation.

calmrapids said...

I've read handbooks for various church callings and most activities have the directive to have and eat food at them. I think this lady needs to check her testimony. She's obviously not living right.

nora.lakehurst said...

Yeah um...... I like cooking. I love to host. I dont mind doing anything.

Bee said...

That's funny. I was in the middle of drinking my homemade milkshake and I was already fantasizing about the one I'm going to make tomorrow. MMMMMMMM

Elizabeth-W said...

I would totally go with you to a buffet!

Klin said...

Calm Rapids= Amen Sista!!!!!

This is even better than your facebook post.

Show me the buffet line EWBL!!

You know that I am no sister skinny.

Hubs is laughing his butt off and just said that he wondered what else she was skimping on? Hmmmmm. You need energy for lots of things. . . .Do you know that we are having pancakes in the morning? Oh yes we are. Swimming in syrup loaded with sugar.

BTW, save some cupcakes for me.

Yvonne said...

I'm all for not cooking more than once a week, but NOT EATING would be horrible.

Our life around here revolves around food--we are always talking about the next meal, too.

S said...

This by far is my mostest favoritest post EVER. Loved every word, every thought, and every moment I spent reading it. AMEN AMEN AMEN. So many quotes so little time:)

Heffalump said...

Scriptures are spiritual food, and we have been counselled to partake daily and not keep it to once a week. Since physical food and spiritual food can be seen as a parallel, I think Sister Skinny was guilty of blasphemy to suggest only eating once a week!

Jana Nielson said...

Who's on the FOODs side, Who? Now is the time to show!


I am! I'm on the food's side!

elasticwaistbandlady said...

You guys spoil me. Really. Thank you so much for commenting here after my prolonged blog absence.

I just finished summer semester in time to start for Fall on Monday and I'm swamped with stuff to do.

Oh, by the way, lest anyone think that Sister Skinny is as salty and hard to digest as a Slim Jim, she's not that way at all. She's a very lovely and kind lady albeit a bit misguided in her lack of appreciation for Heavenly Father's greatest blessing: FOOD!
Gluttony is a sin. Wishing to eat only once a week isn't necessarily a sin but it would feel like akin to Jobe's curse.....at least for me, anyway.

elasticwaistbandlady said...

All of you clever commenters are more than welcome to mosey on down to the corner Golden Corral with me and tie on the feed bag!

If you make the foray to Houston, I SWEAR to feed you more than once a week. Ask Carrot Jello. She came here and dubbed Houston the Buffet capital of the WORLD!

S said...

Uh I live in the midwest too and I just visited Carrots world which she denied me her presents which I am still trying to "get over" but my point is the difference in food from West Coast to Midwest is vastly ginormously different in every sense of the world. We have tumble weeds for weeds not blackberrys enough said!

God Bless the Golden Correl! Its a staple:)

S said...

Uh that would be word! Not world!

Unknown said...

Did you seriously yell that out from a pew in a Mormon chapel? I am cracking up.

Totally understand and totally want to throw a half gallon of ice cream at miss skinny, but totally cracking up.

elasticwaistbandlady said...

Actually......I didn't instigate Sacrament meeting mutiny from a pew.

The Infidel family are long time stragglers which means that we get the oh-so-comfy plastic chairs located in the overflow section.

It was fellow stragglers that snickered at my impromptu "Heck No" music. I maintain my theory that the more righteous sit up front in the pews. They likely would have been shocked and horrified. Appropriately so.

HECK NO music is sort of like Techno music.

Christy said...

Amen sister.

Jill said...

I'm pretty sure that my mom is Sister Skinny