Good Friday, Bad People
Jesus must be rolling over in his grave.
It is Good Friday, and I sit in a library stitchery group. I’ve been looking for a post-pandemic way to mix with others, and this is my first full meeting with the regular attendees — older women who get together weekly to crochet, knit, quilt and chat. I notice how pleased they are to be meeting on Good Friday — a day that means nothing to me.
As I embroider, I listen to their gossip. I learn how rude and disobedient young people are nowadays, and how it’s become wrong, suddenly, for babies to wear pink and blue, so you can’t even tell if they’re girls or boys. And, anyway, children can just choose their own sex now. Ridiculous!
The subject turns to genealogy, and one woman shares how her grandfather fled to the U.S. from Italy after committing a murder. Another tells us about her family’s illicit moonshine business.
Then someone mentions that their neighbor made his fortune growing medical marijuana, and the talk shifts to how disgusting marijuana smells, and who could ever stand to smoke it? A woman tells about the time, many decades ago, when her husband threw a man out of an elevator for offering him a joint. Good for him!
Now someone brings up the southern border. But there is no real border, right? Those people are swarming in, bringing their drugs, crime and filth. It’s terrible! That governor who sent a bunch of them to Washington D.C. — that was a great trick, wasn’t it?
Those people don’t want to work. They want to come here and get a bunch of free things. They want everything to be given to them. Unruly mobs crowding the border —
“A lot of them work really hard,” puts in one woman. She’s not a member of the group, but is visiting her sister from another state. “And there are drugs everywhere, not just near the border.”
“If I lived near the border, I’d have a shotgun,” another interrupts. “If they were on my property, I’d shoot them.” She smiles at the idea.
There’s a pause in the conversation. Then someone turns to me. “What are you doing for Easter this weekend?”
I glance up from my embroidery. “I don’t celebrate Easter.”
The room falls silent.
“I used to,” I add, looking around at their confused, Christian faces, “but I don’t anymore.”
I don’t attend the stitchery group anymore, either.
