Our mother is typically well mannered and polite; however there are those rare occasions where my sister and I see exactly where pieces of our personality stem from. We’d like to take today’s blog to introduce this "quirkier" side of our mother.
While still in college, my parents purchased a small two bedroom condo where I lived during the last few years of school. Our mother lived with me for a short time after our father had been relocated for his job. They commuted back and forth between the two cities on the weekends until my mother found a new job and relocated with our dad. During these years, my sister was going to school up north. This was a rare period of both our lives when we saw very little of each other. During this time, my life proved to be rather challenging and confusing, which led me to believe it was critical my family and I return to church. As young children, my parents took us all to church for years. As we grew up and our lives became busier, church became a smaller priority and we stopped attending regularly.
During college, when I was a crazy & confused 20 year old, my parents helped me find a church near where I was going to school and we began attending, just me and my parents. The priest at the church was a very nice man who liked to become involved in the lives of his “flock”. One day after church, he approached us and requested an opportunity to come by and meet the rest of the family. My parents agreed and the date was decided. As the date got closer, my mother requested the assistance of my brother, who has many years of experience in catering and event planning, in preparing a light brunch. My brother agreed and put together a lovely menu. Additionally, my mother made it very clear to us that she did not want her children to embarrass her in front of the priest; dirty language and fighting amongst ourselves (which was pretty typical behavior for the four of us) would not be tolerated. These types of lectures are typical of my mother, but they generally have very little effect on our behavior.
With our recent lecture at the front of our minds, we all gathered at the small condo where my mother and I lived, and waited for the priest to arrive. Upon his arrival, my mother invited him in, introduced him to the rest of her children. We all gathered around the table and began filling plates with the lovely buffet style brunch my brother and mother had put together. After filling up on pasta salad, frittata, and coffee, we sat around the living room talking with the priest, answering his questions about ourselves. When the conversation turned to my brother’s life, he began answering the priest’s questions in his usual flamboyant manner. It might surprise you to know that my brother (at least back then) had a worse potty mouth then my sister and I combined. Knowing that, we are sure you can guess what happened next. Even after the "lecturing" and stern looks, my brother let loose the “F” word in his conversation with the priest. To be honest, we can’t even remember what he was talking about, some nonsense probably, as that is typical of our brother. Nonsense where the use of the word fuck probably had no real place, but being our father’s children, we find use for the word more often then most. After realizing what he had done, my brother slapped his hand across his mouth and looked with wide eyed alarm at my mother. As we stated earlier, my mother is typically well mannered and polite, however she has a potty mouth of her own at moments. These moments are few and far between and are usually reserved for times when a priest is not sitting in her living room, but apparently not on that day (however, as this is the only time in recent memory that a priest has been sitting in her living room that is really more of an assumption than a fact). My mother’s face turned red and she looked at our brother with a shocked expression and blurted “JESUS CHRIST” followed by some shocked stuttering. This was not the “Jesus Christ” one utters during prayer; it was a straight up, old fashioned curse. In unison we all turned to her with a look that clearly said “mom, that didn’t make it better!!” Conversation stalled for a few brief moments before the priest laughed a bit uncomfortably and muttered something about being used to some inappropriate language, being a chaplain of a fire house. While we refrained from using any further inappropriate language for the rest of the visit, we could tell the priest had had enough of us. The rest of the visit was somewhat tense and uncomfortable and when the priest made to leave, we were all pretty relieved to be rid of him. As is typical of my family, we had quite a laugh reliving my mothers slip up after the priest had left and to this day the use of “Jesus Christ” as a curse makes us all chuckle a little.
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