Saint (eBook)

Why I Should Be Canonized Right Away

Lino Rulli (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
248 Seiten
Servant (Verlag)
978-1-63582-370-7 (ISBN)

If you've been waiting for a saint that cries like a schoolgirl, was once an aspiring rapper, is a really good kisser, and rode an elephant in the circus...then your prayers have been answered! Lino Rulli is hilarious, brutally honest, and ready for his canonization. Saint picks up where Sinner left off. Lino's stories of triumph and failure suggest that you might not be as big a sinner as you think. And that, with God's grace, you might just become a saint.

If you've been waiting for a saint that cries like a schoolgirl, was once an aspiring rapper, is a really good kisser, and rode an elephant in the circus...then your prayers have been answered!Lino Rulli is hilarious, brutally honest, and ready for his canonization. Saint picks up where Sinner left off. Lino's stories of triumph and failure suggest that you might not be as big a sinner as you think. And that, with God's grace, you might just become a saint.

: CHAPTER ONE :

As for Me and My Lips, We Will Serve the Lord

The first time I kissed a girl was at the ripe old age of fifteen. The year was 1987, and it all began with a phone call.

“Lino, answer that!” my dad yelled from the living room.

We had two phones in the house. One in my parents’ bedroom, which I rarely used lest I accidentally contemplate my conception. The other phone sat on the kitchen counter, keeping the electric can opener company.

Back then, my parents had an odd policy regarding the phone. When it rang, if I was home, I had to answer it. If I wasn’t home, one of them would answer it. (Somehow they were unable to muster the strength to pick up the phone themselves when I was there.) And the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, I was thrilled whenever the phone rang for me.

“Hello?” I asked, hoping it was for me.

“I’m having a party,” my friend Dan said, without even making sure it was I that answered the phone. “It’s gonna be a rager,” he said confidently.

“My curfew is ten o’clock,” I said. “Will the raging be done by then?”

“No. Not late enough,” he replied. He seemed annoyed. “Make up a story why you have to stay out later. Lie to your parents.”

Lie to my parents just so that I could hang out with Dan and his cassette tapes? I wondered if the lie was worth the hassle.

“It’ll be worth it,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “My dad bought me a CD player. And girls will be there.”

Girls? Not since my mom threw me a tenth birthday bash at Chuck E. Cheese had I been to a full-blown social gathering with girls. I imagined a party like those I’d seen in the movies. Sixteen Candles. Weird Science. Teen Wolf. Wild revelry with cars parked like ships scuttled on the front lawn. Inside the house, hundreds of kids jammed into a living room—drinking, smoking, sweating, dancing, and dodging one another’s big hair. I might get a chance to destroy a turntable. I might rescue a weeping Molly Ringwald. I might turn into a werewolf. That was the party I wanted to go to.

But I wasn’t cool. As it turned out, neither was Dan.

The merrymaking consisted of me, Dan, Phil, three girls I’d never met before, a “gently used” bottle of rum, and a case of Old Milwaukee beer. There was only one car; it was Phil’s, parked neatly in the driveway. The six of us began the night sitting around the wood-grained dining room table. The only ones dancing were the collection of porcelain ballerinas crammed in the cabinet behind us. The beast of a boom box, the only macho thing in the room, sat in the middle of the table, unmanned by a doily. Whitesnake pumped from its speakers. We listened, trying hard to pretend that we weren’t at the lamest party on the planet. No doubt, even those politically repressed teens we usually pitied way over in the Soviet Union would have been saddened if they could have seen the pathetic condition of this American party.

I was seated between a blonde and a brunette, both as statuesque (I think that’s the polite way of saying “big-boned”) and strong as I imagined a Soviet girl would be. As I gazed at the brunette to my right, Whitesnake wondered if it was love that I was feeling. Nope. She wasn’t the love that I’d been searching for, but she did have a personality, a low tolerance for alcohol, and what seemed like a high tolerance for dorky guys with big noses and even bigger mullets. After her second beer, everything I said was comedy gold. I couldn’t go wrong around her. I’d say something mildly amusing, and she’d laugh, which I took as a sign that I should try more jokes.

As a side note, it was moments like this that encouraged me to use my God-given comedic skills only for good. I realized that my ability to throw out a halfway decent joke would be my ticket to success in life. Professionally and personally.

I still recall the first time I ever told a joke in public, and the reaction it got. I was in sixth grade, in my favorite teacher Mrs. McDonald’s class. She asked a question about President Lincoln, my classmate Scott answered it, and then she asked if I thought he was right. Pretending to be a drunk in a bar, I lifted up my imaginary glass and said, “I’ll drink to that!” It was my first laugh line in public and I can remember the feeling even now. I knew making people laugh was in my future. And now, sitting at Dan’s house, I had that feeling again: My ability to crack a joke would pay off…

After one of my unbelievably adequate zingers, she put her hand on my thigh.

“You’re so funny, Lino,” she said, between guffaws. “Let’s go outside.”

Did she think my jokes would be even funnier in the driveway? I wondered.

“I want to ask you something out there,” she said. Her hand was still on my thigh.

Wow. Was this girl digging me? Was I finally going to kiss a girl? And, well, with her hand there on my thigh, could I really stand up right now?

“Sure,” I said, knowing I’d need a minute to collect myself. “Be right there.”

After I cooled down, my mind struggled to consider the possibilities. Maybe she really liked me. Then again, she said she had a question to ask. I hoped she wouldn’t ask about math or geography, because I was horrible at those subjects. Or, even worse, maybe she was going to ask me if Dan or Phil were single. By the time I’d worked through the options, she’d disappeared. I found her outside, standing in front of Phil’s car.

“Do you want to kiss me?” she asked with a smile.

“Yessss!” I said so loud and abruptly I scared both of us. I know I scared the dogs in the neighborhood. I might have scared the next-door neighbors, too. Their security lights popped on.

As I approached my Soviet sweetheart, I was going down a road I’d never known. My very first kiss. It was exciting. It was groundbreaking. It was gross.

My lips and tongue were everywhere—her chin, her cheek, her neck—at one point I accidentally licked the top of her hairline. A few times I even hit her mouth. I was a mess.

And while it was clear I had no idea how to kiss a girl, it was also clear I wasn’t planning on giving up anytime soon. She was either very patient, found me really attractive, or the Old Milwaukee cancelled all of her judgment capabilities, because she wasn’t giving up either. Three hours later, Dan came out to check on us.

“What are you two doing?” He was intrigued. And a little disturbed. “Have you really been making out this whole time?”

We stopped kissing long enough to come up for air and answer him. “Yeah.”

Then I shooed him back inside. He could go hang out with his new CD player. I’d waited fifteen years to make out with a girl. I might never have this chance again. I wasn’t planning to stop until my lips fell off.

A year would pass before I kissed another girl. It was at another party. This time, we only made out for an hour. Then she made out with my friend Tony. By the time I graduated from high school, I’d kissed a total of two girls. What a stud.

* * *

When I’m canonized, I want to be named the patron saint of kissing.

Ribbon makers have St. Polycarp of Smyrna. Beekeepers have St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Those with bowel disorders have St. Bonaventure. Kissers need someone to intercede for them. Why not me?

You could ask for my prayers the way the absentminded ask St. Anthony’s intercessions when they lose something. Only, instead of “Something is lost and can’t be found, please, St. Anthony, look around,” one could say, “Falling in love would really be bliss, please, St. Lino, get me a kiss!”

If a guy found himself too manly to rhyme, he could try a holier form of prayer: “O loving St. Lino, friend of the single person, please intercede that I may have a first kiss. And that it could lead to a second kiss. And that we may fall in love, if it be the Lord’s will.”

You want love? God is love. I’ll be in heaven with God, and I’ll ask Him to give you some. The perfect combination of romance, chivalry, and faith, brought to kissers everywhere by yours truly.

And to sweeten the pot, though I didn’t have much experience as a teenager, I’ve improved my kissing skills a great deal since the 80s (then again, I couldn’t get any worse). Now I’m an amazing kisser.

It might sound weirdly confident to acknowledge that I’m a good kisser, but I really am. I don’t have that many skills, but that’s one of ’em. The women who have kissed me have borne witness—and their testimony is true, and they know that they tell the truth—so that you also may believe.

God gives us gifts He wants us to share. So we Christians need to drop the fake humility when it comes to our talents. If you’re a plumber, plumb for Jesus. If you’re a dentist, grind away for the Lord. If you’re a proctologist,...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	1.2.2023
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
ISBN-10	1-63582-370-6 / 1635823706
ISBN-13	978-1-63582-370-7 / 9781635823707

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