Advertisement

Parting Glances: Sister's carpool from Hell

Dear Father Manly Everhope: I'm reluctant to send you this e-mail because I know you're very busy conducting your commendable bar, beach, brunch, and bathhouse ministry, reaching out thoughtfully to others as "one of the boys".
(When I last heard you were in Saugatuck, or was it Cancun? Palm Springs? West Hollywood? I'm not sure which delightfully wicked sin city. I do know it was some locale where your uplifting outreach and tremulous Christian lip services are needed among our benighted, sun-worshiping, bare-chested, Frisbee-wild, carefree, young heathen. You go, farther, er, father!)
Anyhow. Our beloved friend and companion in faith & fashion, Sr. Serena Scatterpin, is in a bit of a tizzy. Fit to rend her DKNY wash-and-wear wimple to shreds. Something about a devastating encounter she's had with some fundygelicals while carpooling back from the UP. Something about her virginal left knee. The one she uses to genuflect with. It's black and blue. Spiritually akimbo.
Anyhow: she was at the UP for the annual Recovering Catholic Mackinaw Bridge Walk — 5000 walked or wheel chaired across she says (Gov. Granholm stayed home) — but somehow managed to get her ecumenical wires crossed coming back. Easy enough to do. (It seems — demographically speaking — that RCs, as God only knows, have a penchant for groupie traveling in sleek, air-conditioned, Jacuzzi stretch limos. But, as, it turns out, to her chagrin, so do Bible belters — anything as long as it's not a let's-all-boycott-Ford for Jesus SUV.)
So, at the risk of breaching a confidence, but to save Sr. Scatterpin's sanity, here's my cellphone transcription of our conversation. (Pray for me, father, for I have sinned. But what's a little venial sin among friends, anyway?)
SCATTERPIN: "It's me, dear boy. Sorry to give you the buzz up at three in the morning, but I'm, pardon the expression, all fagged out. Been hitch hiking since midnight. Escaped at a stop light. Had to fight my way out of a carpool. Those fundygelicals are too much. Just wouldn't leave me alone. Not for one blessed minute. Holy St. Vitus Dance!"
ME: "Calm down, Sister. Take deep breaths. Count to ten. Get your famous fashion conscious, virginal appearing esprit de corps back in order, and do go on."
SCATTERPIN: "Well the truth of the matter is I hopped into the wrong limo. Before I realized my mistake, we were speeding down Route 31, and I was wedged in between two hefty beef burger kinda guys, Brother Stan and Brother Ollie. Said they were elders of the First Church of Intelligent Design. (They didn't look any too bright to me.) Right off the bat Brother Ollie asks, Are you born again, sister? while Brother Stan squeezes my knee repeatedly, for biblical emphasis no doubt.
"Oh, no, says I. Born again? I got it right the first time. No mid-life breach birthing pour moi. Not that it's anybody's beeswax: I'm a Recovering Catholic. Weren't you at the march in support of us? Heavens, no! shreaks Brother Ollie. We were attending a week-long conference on Saving the Low Down Down Low for Jesus.
"Then, like a hot flash on the road to Damascus Brother Stan gives me another kneecap vice-clamparoo and hissyfits, You're not one of those damnable drag queens are you? That did it, my child. I elbowed him right in his very own down low. You should be so lucky, I told him. Then they dumped me."
ME: "Where are you now, Sister?"
SR. SCATTERPIN: "Not sure. It's either Howell or Hell, Michigan. It sure ain't heaven."



Advertisement
Topics: Opinions
Advertisement

From the Pride Source Marketplace

Go to the Marketplace
Directory default
Detroit Regional LGBT Chamber of Commerce MemberA food & ice cream experience with quality…
Learn More
Directory default
Archival Holdings: Association of Suburban People newsletters Brian R. McNaught papers Michigan…
Learn More
Advertisement