Church Lady Chronicles (eBook)

Up Jumped the Deviled Eggs

First let me say that I don’t know why they are called deviled eggs, as if there were something sinful about something so wholesome. As I understand it, when you chop up something then add spices, it’s deviled. I never thought that mashing up cooked egg yokes and adding a little mayo and paprika plus, of course, my secret ingredient would somehow crack the door to let Satan into the church fellowship hall. But clearly it did, which explains why the pastor ended up with, among other things, egg on his face and, if I have anything to say about it, that little spawn-of-Satan, Sammy Snert, will not be joining the others as they head out into the wilderness to come to Jesus.

Oh my heavens, I’m getting ahead of the story, which I need to tell so that my reputation re mains untarnished and to remove any blame that may be placed on my plate of secret-recipe deviled eggs—a family favorite that has been handed down for generations.

We church ladies were having a potluck with the usual free-will offering to raise money to send the little heathens we call “at-risk youth” to summer camp to divert them from the highway of sin they travel on to a better and more righteous path in life. First off, my heavens, it will take more than incinerating marshmallows around a campfire and whittling sticks (should we even give them knives?) to help them find the path of righteousness, but I suppose we must try. And of course good deeds take money. But back to the buffet line. The term “free will” implies that you need only contribute if you feel so inclined. Just as the Lord gives us free will so do the church ladies who organize the potluck. The fact that the collection basket with the large- print sign “FREE-WILL OFFERING” was strategically located by the paper plates and napkins at the beginning of the buffet line was of no consequence. The fact that there was a nice, crisp $20 bill conspicuously placed in the basket was also simply a suggestion and by no means implied a requirement. Also, the accusation that we church women lurk nearby, casting judgmental looks at those who hesitate to understand the concept of free will, is simply rubbish. The women who lurked—er—stood nearby were making certain that there was plenty of food, napkins and so on. Of course we kept an eye on the offering basket too, in case it should overflow. That’s how the misunderstanding began: with an overflowing basket of free will.

The idea that somehow sending a bunch of youthful miscreants to the Wayward Bound Youth Camp will transform them from delinquent-hood into a sainthood is, at best, overly optimistic. How anyone figures stirring all of those hormone-crazed youth of mixed denominations into one pot is going to result in anything but a toxic waste dump is beyond me. I am among those who have not forgotten that last summer the sheriff’s department raided the camp and confiscated a large quantity of Marijuana plants that nobody seemed to know anything about.

But back to the day of our buffet. It was the Free-Will Offering Basket that generated the temptation—not the deviled eggs (did I mention they were my special recipe?)—that led to a tiny misunderstanding. As I said, we church ladies were keeping a keen eye on the food supplies, which were being demolished like an anthill in a rainstorm. I was just bringing out the last of my—not to brag—famous deviled eggs when out of the corner of my eye I spotted the Snert boy skulking about. I do try to keep youth such as him within my peripheral vision. I should mention that during the sermon I spotted him putting a wad of gum between the pages of a pew Bible. It was a newer one, too. I understand that Sammy comes from a home with a shaky if not non- existent Christian foundation, what with his mother being single and working nights at a disreputable liquor establishment. Such an environment is just opening the door for Satan to come in and start his dealings with the youngsters whose mother leaves them in the care of the eldest girl, who is clearly not up to the task of monitoring the activities of—I believe at last count—four younger siblings.

The Snert children were invited to join the Youth For Christ (Y4C) group at our church. While Sammy was reluctant at first, his Juvenile probation officer strongly encouraged him to give it a try. Or else. Apparently gum in a Bible is the least of young Stert’s transgressions.

So with the lad having such a nefarious background, I believe the Lord expected me to keep an eye on him. And of course I had no way of knowing that Aggie Bloodwort (bless her heart) had also been watching things and I’ve always said that poor communication opens the trapdoor to Satan’s lair. So when I saw Sammy removing cash from the heaping Free-Will Offering Basket, my reaction was completely justified. How was I to know that Aggie (the silly old fool) asked Sammy—entrusted him!—to fetch the basket and bring it to her to put in the zipper bank pouch for safekeeping? Truly, it was the wolf guarding the sheep; what was she thinking?

As I said, when I saw the Snert boy snatching up the cash my reaction was totally warranted. Somebody must have dropped some noodles on the floor (I always thought noodles were a rather uninspired covered dish) and as I reached out for the boy, my foot slipped out from under me, throwing me off kilter. I still have good reflexes and automatically reached for the first thing I could grab to avoid a fall. It happened to be the flimsy, overloaded buffet table. Apparently two of the legs on the table were not locked into place and one end collapsed, rather violently I’m afraid, creating a kind of catapult effect with the other end. This launched the lighter items, such as my deviled eggs, several feet in the air. This all occurred the exact moment that Pastor Goode turned to see what the commotion was about (everyone else ducked) and, unfortunately, he was the recipient of various projectiles, edible and otherwise.

While, to my knowledge, injuries from deviled eggs rarely occur, it was just happenstance that a toothpick got left in one of the eggs (to hold the plastic wrap off the eggs during transport) and that silly toothpick just happened to make a beeline into the pastor’s left eye. He was not wearing his glasses, likely due to vanity. Had he been, this whole silly thing would have just been a something to chuckle about. Eventually.

The fellowship hall was in a bit of a shambles, with the food splattered on the floor. My deviled eggs—those not plastered on Pastor Goode’s face—were smashed beyond recognition in the melee. The pastor, not as stoic as one might expect, ran around crying “my eye, my eye!” and I spotted Sammy Snert, who was concealing something under his Y4C tee shirt, slinking away. How was I to know that at the very instant I lunged for young Snert that Pastor Goode would stagger in front of me? I mean couldn’t he have used his one good eye to notice what other people were doing? We might have missed each other, too, if I had not had noodle residue on the bottom of my shoe. Once again my excellent reflexes caused me to reach for the first thing I could grab, which happened to be Pastor Goode. Well, we both went down, with him on the bottom. My heavens, how embarrassing being entangled with a man of the cloth. And the Snert boy was getting away! I scrambled to my feet, scraped off the noodles and sprinted after the little thug. I could hear the pastor now yelling something like “my neck, my neck!” For goodness sake. First it was his eye, now his neck. I suspect he’s a bit of a hypochondriac in addition to being vain.

Sammy Snert proved to be a klutzy kid because I caught the little imp just as he slipped out the side door—he actually did slip—and while he was squirming on the ground saying something like “m’lip, m’lip,” I patted him down and though I didn’t discover the cash—I found out later that Aggie (the dingbat) had gotten it sometime during the free-for-all—I did find a whole pecan pie, somewhat worse for wear. It turns out that he split his lip on the cement step and was holding his mouth yelling and cussing. I told the little potty mouth to quit taking the Lord’s name in vain and I escorted him back into the fellowship hall to look for a band aid and to report his offense to the pastor who, unfortunately, was sprawled on the floor with a knot of do- gooders clustered around him. They all looked at me as if I were somehow to blame!

Well, I know when I’m not welcome and I was quite miffed that I had collared the little pie-pinching urchin and received no commendation whatsoever. Talk about no good deed going unpunished! Granted, he was bleeding rather badly, but that is no reason to let him off the hook and look at me as if I had lobsters coming out of my ears. I took my leave—rather huffily—just as the ambulance arrived and headed back to my apartment at the Gnarly Woods Senior Complex.

I heard later that Sammy Snert needed stitches in his lip and a cap on his tooth, and that his mother was threatening to sue the church. Can you imagine? After all we have done for those Snert children. Besides, it was just a scratch and nobody seemed to care that the boy was making a getaway with a stolen pie. Pastor Goode will only need to wear the cervical collar for a few weeks but it seems that his eye injury required some fussing and ultimately a...