The Church of Thin
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Puck decided that on Wednesday night he was going to fuss off and on for two hours before finally falling asleep. He apparently thought his fist was a Popsicle the way he sucked on it while whining to himself as the June bugs batted against his window.
Come Thursday afternoon, there were the rumblings of thunder above the treetops.
OLeif had returned home for his hour lunch break and flipped on the television for awhile. What happened to come on the screen was a show hosted by a world-renowned supermodel. She had invited the leader of “The Church of Thin” onto her show for the afternoon, whose logo depicted a cross constructed of a knife and fork.
“Now we know we’re not going to be able to stop eating for ourselves,” the church leader drawled in heavy southernness. “We’re not going to be able to stop for love, for our families… We’re only going to be able to stop eating for God. Only for Him.”
OLeif and Collette exchanged odd glances.
“Now some of these women here at the church have lost eighty pounds. You just learn to choreograph each bite of food to how you want it, to your taste, and learn when you’re full and when you need to stop eating.”
The church leader then presumed to show the supermodel how to eat a hamburger and fries with a soda, M ‘n Ms, chips and salsa, and baby back ribs in such a way as to eat tiny bites, savoring the flavor (every bite being heavily covered in salt). Each chip, each fry, was split into four bites apiece. The burger was knifed into small wedges. And when the supermodel questioned the nutritional value, the church leader continued.
“Now God wouldn’t make any food that’s evil, that’s going to harm our bodies. Cows eat grass; they’re made to eat grass. That’s what they like. They’re not forced to eat it. And we also eat what we like.”
There seemed to be churches for everything those days… sadly.
Come later in the afternoon the skies grew quite dark and the thunder cracked all the louder. The wind stirred up the honeysuckle. Puck lay in his crib and watched the skies from his window, seemingly nearly as enthralled with the wicked weather as was his mom.
Lucia and Carrie dropped by again during the afternoon and Carrie fed Puck his afternoon bottle while streams of milk spewed out of the corners of his mouth in his enthusiasm for his afternoon snack.
And while Carrie-Bri had just given the notice to her boss that she would be leaving NAWS come the 15th of June, Shepherd’s wife, Malaya, would be starting her work there in the summer, working in administration.
The house moaned even worse that evening, several times in a row, right as Puck went down to bed for the night. Yet another time that Collette was thankful he was not disturbed by noise. Maybe the house would eventually fall apart on itself. Collapse or no, its timbers were surely fully shivered.
OLeif came home that night after the rain and ordered a pizza for the both of them. Collette wondered how the leader of “The Church of Thin” would have advised on eating Pizza Hut’s cheesy bread.