pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS? Got a brief reprieve from meeting world for at least forty-five minutes today by saying to my boss, as we walked out of our second interview of the day, "If I tell you that we sold ten thousand books last month, that the trains are all running on time, and that I would like to pee and eat sometime before six o'clock tonight, can I skip the division managers meeting today?" Guess she thought it was amusing enough to give me a break, so I'll write briefly while I eat my leftovers. A schizophrenic man in line behind me at the coffee shop this morning was mumbling in a sing-song voice about how certain people need to die and then started pointing around the room at people. The barista diffused the situation by saying "Now Jeffrey, be nice and I'll give you a cup of coffee." Amazing how delusional behavior still triggers a panic response in me though. I saw a particularly obnoxious variation on the Save Our Troops yellow bow this morning. It starts out yellow with Save Our Troops written on the panel, then fades into red and white stripes, then the stripes turn into a blue Christian flag with a big honkin' cross on it. I'm not sure how this happened since I was listening to Big Mama Thornton and her songs are certainly not hymnlike, but that Christian flag transported me back to Vacation Bible School and I was suddenly still pissed about the fact that they only let boys carry the flags into assembly. Then I thought about John Paul Crichton, a spaghetti-armed boy who always cheated by shoving the Christian flagpole against his FORD! belt buckle when he walked up the steps, which caused my friend Paige and me to say Look, he's cheating! until our teacher leaned over and shushed us. Anyway, now I'm trying to remember the pledges they made us say in addition to the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag (which only boys could carry into assembly). I'm not sure these are correct, but you would think I would remember them, since I had to say the damn things at least weekly for the first fifteen years of my life and daily (shudder) during Vacation Bible School and Backyard Bible school and at Baptist camp every summer. I will verify these words with Musicgrrl (whose father was a Baptist minister), but here they are to the best of my recollection: THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE CHRISTIAN FLAG (which, as I said, only boys could carry into assembly): I pledge allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the savior for whose kingdom it stands. One savior crucified, risen and coming again, offering life and liberty to all men who believe. THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE BIBLE (which girls or boys could carry in assembly): I pledge allegiance to the Bible, God's holy word. I will make it a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path and will hide its words in my heart that I might not sin against God. • In other news, I met this sexy woman online, but wonder if it would be too weird to go out with a 5-foot-2-inch woman with red hair. (This sounds an awful lot like the Ginger.) Might be too strange. I do love red hair though—especially if she's a true redhead with red hair everywhere.
1:19 p.m. - 2005-03-15 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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