Oh Lord, I know I should not eat thee, but...
Today I shall tell you about the latest thing I've done that has caused the pope to shake his head in sorrowful disapproval.
Flidget Jerome: We should all just fuck off to Italy and fight for the Pope.
ThorneScratch: Yes, that too. Oh God. Oh God Flidget. I did my Worst Thing. I need to confess something.
Flidget Jerome: Yes? No?
ThorneScratch: I did something so simultaneously lazy and blasphemous, that… Anyway so, I was at my desk at home and I was hungry, but I didn't want to walk downstairs to get food. I didn't want to take the fifteen seconds it would require for such a thing.
Flidget Jerome: Did you eat holy wafers again?
ThorneScratch: Plus whatever kinetic energy wuld be involved in either opening the fridge or a cupboard-- YES. YES I DID.
Flidget Jerome: …Why do you even HAVE wafers lying around the house?!
ThorneScratch: I ATE THE PACKET OF WAFERS I BOUGHT IN ROME. ONE OF THE PACKETS.
Flidget Jerome: WHY . . . WHY IS THIS YOUR LIFE?!
ThorneScratch: And Flidget… I did it while reading porn. I am history's greatest monster.
Flidget Jerome: I'm really more worried by the fact that this was a scenario possible for you, not even that you did it.
ThorneScratch: Wait, is there actually a single part of that scenario that seems unlikely for me?
Flidget Jerome: WHY DID YOU BUY PACKETS OF WAFERS?
ThorneScratch: Like, seriously. Which part? That I wouldn't be lazy? That I wouldn't somehow have communion wafers in my possession?
Flidget Jerome: WHAT WERE YOU KEEPING THEM AROUND FOR?!
ThorneScratch: I WAS IN ROME.
Flidget Jerome: WHY DOES ROME EVEN SELL COMMUNION WAFERS?!
ThorneScratch: THEY DO THAT IN ROME.
Flidget Jerome: WELL THEY'RE UNBLESSED, RIGHT?!
ThorneScratch: ....yesssss, I think.
They were. See, last year when I was in Rome, one of the things I learned (aside from the fact my cousin's batshit order occasionally played shirts-skins pickup basketball games with the Swiss Guard on their off hours) is that priests (or at least the ones in my cousin's batshit order) have to furnish pretty much all of their own stuff. Like, they get some things from the church, but a lot of the times, you gotta go get your own vestments, stoles, chalices, exorcism kit, etc. And fortunately, being Rome, there are stores all over the place that sell priest doo-dads. Given that this was essentially my cousin's equivalent of wedding to God, my mother and my aunts and uncles had all decided that the financial proceeds from one of my deceased grandmother's particularly large, ugly, and valuable pieces of jewelry would be used to buy a really nice chalice for my cousin. It would be a gift from the entire family.
So one evening, after the entire family was sufficiently taken off guard by application of generous amounts of gelato, my cousin took us all to one of those stores, and most of my aunts and uncles crowded into a room that looked like that scene from Indiana Jones with all the grails, and started arguing over which jewel-encrusted one he was getting. Some of them were beautiful; some of them looked like gaudy monstrosities, and since Italian bargaining involves a lot of waved hands and shouting, my other cousins and I settled for wandering around the store and poking all the other stuff they sell.
Which, of course, includes unblessed communion wafers and wine. Like, in all quantities! You could basically buy enormous jugs of communion wine and pallets of wafers, or your more conservative bottle and a twenty piecer bag. they come in different patterns too, like if you wanted the simple round ones, or the elaborate hexagonal ones that break into pieces like a jigsaw, or big special holiday ones, or whatever.
Being the kind of person I am, I immediately grabbed a bag of them and was making for the cash register post haste, with vague ideas of creating some kind of communion wafer casserole, or having them out in nut and candy dishes at my next party. My mother, knowing the kind of person that I am, intercepted me about ten feet from the register and hissed at me in tones most terrible, "PUT THOSE BACK RIGHT NOW."
"But, but, but...!" I said.
"You are going to get us into even more trouble with this side of the family than you did with the Padre Pio thing, don't you even THINK about it," she said.
"Fine," I said, and stomped off, to spend the rest of the time sulking and furtively rearranging the various statues and nativity sets also for sale in the store.
So, we eventually came to terms on the chalice, and then there was the mystifying settlement of the VAT, and I think someone got bribed at some point. We would have to come back to the store to get it later, because we were also having it engraved, but everyone seemed pretty satisfied, especially my cousin, and that's the important part. Lots of other stuff happened in Rome, hopefully some of which I'll get to remembering during this blogging month.
However, since my mother is also pretty cool at heart, she bought a small packet of wafers on the sly, and I found them in my stocking on Christmas morning when we had come back home. (I didn't tell her, of course, that as soon as everyone's back was turned the next day, I had come back and bought myself some as well. It would have ruined the sentiment of the moment. But I had been in such a rush, I grabbed the gluten-free ones by mistake, so it all really did work out for the best.)
...and then they sat on my desk for almost a year, next to my Tyler Clippard bobblehead, and I ate one of the packets in a fit of laziness and curiosity. They were sacrilicious. Also, I bought my cousin a bunch of sacramental cords he gets to wear for various events, so I hope that evened things out somehow.
If you do want to give me a topic, feel free; otherwise, I'll probably just keep jabbering on about whatever comes into my head at 11:30 pm when I realize I haven't done my blog thing for the day yet.
Flidget Jerome: We should all just fuck off to Italy and fight for the Pope.
ThorneScratch: Yes, that too. Oh God. Oh God Flidget. I did my Worst Thing. I need to confess something.
Flidget Jerome: Yes? No?
ThorneScratch: I did something so simultaneously lazy and blasphemous, that… Anyway so, I was at my desk at home and I was hungry, but I didn't want to walk downstairs to get food. I didn't want to take the fifteen seconds it would require for such a thing.
Flidget Jerome: Did you eat holy wafers again?
ThorneScratch: Plus whatever kinetic energy wuld be involved in either opening the fridge or a cupboard-- YES. YES I DID.
Flidget Jerome: …Why do you even HAVE wafers lying around the house?!
ThorneScratch: I ATE THE PACKET OF WAFERS I BOUGHT IN ROME. ONE OF THE PACKETS.
Flidget Jerome: WHY . . . WHY IS THIS YOUR LIFE?!
ThorneScratch: And Flidget… I did it while reading porn. I am history's greatest monster.
Flidget Jerome: I'm really more worried by the fact that this was a scenario possible for you, not even that you did it.
ThorneScratch: Wait, is there actually a single part of that scenario that seems unlikely for me?
Flidget Jerome: WHY DID YOU BUY PACKETS OF WAFERS?
ThorneScratch: Like, seriously. Which part? That I wouldn't be lazy? That I wouldn't somehow have communion wafers in my possession?
Flidget Jerome: WHAT WERE YOU KEEPING THEM AROUND FOR?!
ThorneScratch: I WAS IN ROME.
Flidget Jerome: WHY DOES ROME EVEN SELL COMMUNION WAFERS?!
ThorneScratch: THEY DO THAT IN ROME.
Flidget Jerome: WELL THEY'RE UNBLESSED, RIGHT?!
ThorneScratch: ....yesssss, I think.
They were. See, last year when I was in Rome, one of the things I learned (aside from the fact my cousin's batshit order occasionally played shirts-skins pickup basketball games with the Swiss Guard on their off hours) is that priests (or at least the ones in my cousin's batshit order) have to furnish pretty much all of their own stuff. Like, they get some things from the church, but a lot of the times, you gotta go get your own vestments, stoles, chalices, exorcism kit, etc. And fortunately, being Rome, there are stores all over the place that sell priest doo-dads. Given that this was essentially my cousin's equivalent of wedding to God, my mother and my aunts and uncles had all decided that the financial proceeds from one of my deceased grandmother's particularly large, ugly, and valuable pieces of jewelry would be used to buy a really nice chalice for my cousin. It would be a gift from the entire family.
So one evening, after the entire family was sufficiently taken off guard by application of generous amounts of gelato, my cousin took us all to one of those stores, and most of my aunts and uncles crowded into a room that looked like that scene from Indiana Jones with all the grails, and started arguing over which jewel-encrusted one he was getting. Some of them were beautiful; some of them looked like gaudy monstrosities, and since Italian bargaining involves a lot of waved hands and shouting, my other cousins and I settled for wandering around the store and poking all the other stuff they sell.
Which, of course, includes unblessed communion wafers and wine. Like, in all quantities! You could basically buy enormous jugs of communion wine and pallets of wafers, or your more conservative bottle and a twenty piecer bag. they come in different patterns too, like if you wanted the simple round ones, or the elaborate hexagonal ones that break into pieces like a jigsaw, or big special holiday ones, or whatever.
Being the kind of person I am, I immediately grabbed a bag of them and was making for the cash register post haste, with vague ideas of creating some kind of communion wafer casserole, or having them out in nut and candy dishes at my next party. My mother, knowing the kind of person that I am, intercepted me about ten feet from the register and hissed at me in tones most terrible, "PUT THOSE BACK RIGHT NOW."
"But, but, but...!" I said.
"You are going to get us into even more trouble with this side of the family than you did with the Padre Pio thing, don't you even THINK about it," she said.
"Fine," I said, and stomped off, to spend the rest of the time sulking and furtively rearranging the various statues and nativity sets also for sale in the store.
So, we eventually came to terms on the chalice, and then there was the mystifying settlement of the VAT, and I think someone got bribed at some point. We would have to come back to the store to get it later, because we were also having it engraved, but everyone seemed pretty satisfied, especially my cousin, and that's the important part. Lots of other stuff happened in Rome, hopefully some of which I'll get to remembering during this blogging month.
However, since my mother is also pretty cool at heart, she bought a small packet of wafers on the sly, and I found them in my stocking on Christmas morning when we had come back home. (I didn't tell her, of course, that as soon as everyone's back was turned the next day, I had come back and bought myself some as well. It would have ruined the sentiment of the moment. But I had been in such a rush, I grabbed the gluten-free ones by mistake, so it all really did work out for the best.)
...and then they sat on my desk for almost a year, next to my Tyler Clippard bobblehead, and I ate one of the packets in a fit of laziness and curiosity. They were sacrilicious. Also, I bought my cousin a bunch of sacramental cords he gets to wear for various events, so I hope that evened things out somehow.
If you do want to give me a topic, feel free; otherwise, I'll probably just keep jabbering on about whatever comes into my head at 11:30 pm when I realize I haven't done my blog thing for the day yet.