Of Christians and Corndogs
More adventures from what I am realizing is a really, really strange life.
Religion is funny sometimes. Not the beliefs behind it, but the thing itself. Especially if you aren’t a part of one, but just looking in from the outside. Y’all, some of yo’ shit is odd. Like the whole “recruiting new believers things”. I know why you do it, and it makes sense, but sometimes it leads you to do some damned silly things. Like get scammed by a 9-year-old.
This will amaze the youngin’s out there, but back in the mid-to-late-1970s, Miami, especially out around Bird Road and SW112th avenue, was a really different place. Really redneck-y. I lived in an apartment complex in the area, and was, in a land of Baptists, son to lapsed Catholics. My parents had both been educated in Catholic schools in the 1930s. They had the scars on their knuckles to prove it.
So, we didn’t go to church on Sundays, and for most of my short life up to that point, all 8 or 9 years of it, this wasn’t a big deal. But in this apartment complex, church, and sunday school was a big deal. Every sunday, three different school buses would pull in, from three separate sunday schools, and every kid, but one, would get on one of them and disappear for hours. Here I am, the little heathen child home alone every Sunday, with nothing to do until everyone got back around oh…2pm?
I’m kind of surprised no one tried to run an exorcism on me. For the Catholic thing and well, a lot of other reasons. I was not a calm child.
To say I found Sunday mornings boring as hell was a severe understatement. So one day, after a bit of whining, my parents consented to let me get all dressed up and go to Sunday School. My mom later told me it wasn’t real hard to convince them.
It was either that, or listen to you lose your mind after six bowls of sugar-covered Capt. Crunch and complain you were bored. We would have let you go to Satan School if it meant piece and quiet on a Sunday morning. Charles Manson could have invited you over, we would have been fine with that. You were kind of annoying at that age.
She wasn’t kidding. Looking back, the fact they didn’t sell me to be used as a test animal by unethical scientists is pretty amazing. Especially after I took apart the grandfather clock.
So the next Sunday, I’m all dressed up, I’m going to go to Sunday School. This will be awesome. Well, at least it won’t be boring. Keep in mind, I’m a child of lapsed Catholics from Chicago. I was beyond ignorant of what 1970s Southern Baptist Sunday School was. I was so not prepared. No one is. (If you aren’t Baptist, on YouTube, search for “Estus Pirkle” to get an idea about it. You won’t regret it. Once you get past the name.)
It was okay enough. Seemed a little loud, but whatever. It’s definitely entertaining. Lots of “praise Jesus”. (Also, a lot of Satan. Which was weird, at the time, Catholics kind of ignored him other than You Don’t Want To Meet Him.) Okay, I’m good with that, I read some of the New Testament, Jesus liked little kids and lambs. (Never quite understood the lamb thing. I’d seen lambs at a young age. They smelled and had freaky eyes. I agreed with my dad, they were much better as chops.)
Then we get to the “Where’s Jesus” part, aka “have you found the Lord?” So they’re talking about finding Jesus, finding God, which was a bit odd to me, as the minimal god-related education I had was pretty clear on the “God is everywhere and knows everything” bits. So I wasn’t sure how he could get lost. Or how you could lose him. I mean, he’s right there, no matter where “there” is. If you aren’t raised with it, a lot of religious stuff just doesn’t add up.
But then they say “if you find Jesus today, you get these school supplies and a free corndog.” I couldn’t have found Jesus with a Jesus-finding machine, and school supplies were only cool the last week of August, but you tell a nine-year-old me that if he finds Jesus, he gets FREE CORNDOGS…well HELL YEAH! I jumped up and said “I want to Find Jesus”. A lot of stuff I don’t remember other than it involved me saying “Amen” a LOT, and bang. Jesus found and on the bus ride home, I had a free corndog.
Keep in mind, three separate Sunday schools.
So I figure the next week, I’ll try another one. Maybe they gave you corndogs for finding Jesus too. Also, Jesus really needed God to hold his hand better, he got lost a lot.
Yep. If you find Jesus, you get school supplies and a free corndog. Done.
Next week, the third Sunday School. Corndog.
You know what else was weird? They all looked the same. Ugly 70s architecture and the “finding Jesus” room was that same generic conversation pit where we sat on the edges and the Pastor (? I’m not really sure. I assume it was, I mean, he was in charge of FINDING JESUS! One would assume you have to be a full Pastor to do that) in the middle. From the inside, you couldn’t have told them apart on a bet. Well, Baptists could have, but Baptists are kinda weird.
I might have been only nine, but I had a plan. (I probably also had an unhealthy obsession with corndogs. Nah. That’s like loving bacon too much.) I took a week off, because I realized that if I did so, and then started again, it’d have been a month since they last saw me, and they might have forgotten me. Especially if I dressed different.
Keep in mind that by the age of nine, I’d lost one bike because I was at the library and forgot I had one. Didn’t realize it until the next day. I was regularly quite the bubblehead. But for corndogs, I turn into Lex Freakin’ Luthor, MASTER CRIMINAL PLANNER!
This goes on for months. More than one, probably less than 4. I don’t really wonder at how cynical this all is, because it seems to make everyone happy. They’re happy, because the little yankee heathen has found Jesus, and I’m happy, because FREE CORNDOGS!!!!!
I still wonder about this, and how much was not recognizing me, and how much was just blind happiness at catching another one. I mean, it kind of seems like Pokemon, but they’re all “AnnoyingKidASaur” and they all look exactly alike. After a while, all you care about is having more occupied Pokeballs, because the tenants are just numbers. But I’m also more cynical now, and that’s probably affecting my memory. Also, that would be the worst Pokemon ever. I bet not even Brock would keep that one.
I probably would have set shit on fire for corndogs at that age. Just pointing out that morals are quickly set aside for the proper reward, and at that age, corndogs uber alles.
But eventually, my dad realizes:
- I have a phenomenal collection of schools supplies, and I was never that studious.
- I am always walking in the door eating a corndog, and he knows I’m not getting money ahead of time.
So he and my mom ask me what’s going on, and as it didn’t occur to me that I was doing anything wrong, I tell them. It didn’t occur to me to lie, because I honestly didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. Also, I was a shit liar, my mom worked with lawyers and my dad had been a POW Interrogator in the Korean War. Truth was my only real option.
So…you go to all these different sunday schools, find Jesus, and they give you corndogs.
Uh-huh.
Do they ever ask you if you’ve found Jesus before?
No.
So you aren’t lying. You’re just “finding” Jesus over and over, and they give you corndogs
YES!
…
…
At this point, my mom is literally howling with laughter. Stamping her feet and everything. Tears, barely able to breathe. She has to run to the bathroom so she can pee, that’s how hard she’s laughing. She thinks her son manipulating the Baptists is the best thing ever. (For those of you who think this odd behavior for a mother, keep in mind, the first dirty joke I ever heard an adult tell was told to me by her. “What’s worst than necking with Dracula? Getting fingered by Capt. Hook.” I think my mom lived for that look on people’s faces. Like with the boob sticker incident.)
My dad however, was less sanguine.
Okay Cub, you have to stop.
BUT!! BUT!!!
No. you have to stop. I’m actually afraid that you’re going to go to hell for manipulating the Baptists that much. I’m not mad, you’re not in trouble, and I’m kind of impressed that you figured this out on your own, but what little part of being Catholic remains in me is very worried that you’re going to go to hell. Or lead a cult. Either way, you have to stop.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CORNDOGS!!!!” (This was my real worry here)
My mom at this point is also upset. “BUT WHAT ABOUT MY QUIET SUNDAY MORNINGS!!!”
Sigh..*fine*, we’ll get you a corndog on Sunday.
YAAAAAY
There is some irony in the voice of “reason” being the guy who was a POW interrogator and the guy who instead of knocking over outhouses in 1930s and 40s rural Illinois was the guy who, along with his friends, would move the outhouses so the guys running at them to knock them over would fall in the pit. Also, my mom thought this was a crap deal, because it did nothing for her quiet Sunday mornings.
I think it was that which started me down the path of becoming so areligious. And a bit of a misanthrope. Because things like that make you realize that at least in groups, people can be dumb.
The sad thing was: even though my parents bought me corndogs, the ones I got for finding Jesus tasted better. Scam adds spice I suppose.
