It was a normal Sunday morning. I had done my church shopping, and I was definitely looking forward to going this morning. "Athens Episcopal Church" it sounded legit enough. Alex told me to stop looking after the last debacle.
"Athens Holy Church of God in Christ" this sounded pretty legit as well. When we got there, it wasn't even a church, it was more like a concert hall. There was no preaching. It was all singing. And singing, and singing... Then, we tried to leave early, and every thing stopped. A woman stopped singing... mid-note! This fat (God forgive me),obnoxiously-dressed deacon stormed up to us and yelled down at us about how much we were disrupting the service and disrespecting God. I was standing there respectfully trying to explain myself, and Alex grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the church and ignored the deacon. Meanwhile, the whole church was yelling brimstone and fire at us. Sooooo embarrassing.
So this week, it's "Athens Episcopal Church" and I've finally convinced Alex to come with me. She didn't want to come. She gave me the whole speech about how she doesn't worship my God, and how she thinks I should go by myself, and why do I never go to the Hindu temple with her, and all sorts of foolishness. What ever.
"Let's go, Alex."
I gazed at myself in the mirror. I looked absolutely stunning. A light powdery blue halter-topped dress (it's always safe to wear a dress the first time at a new church. You never know their dress code) with a short white cardigan, baby blue flats, and silver accessories.
Alex enters, wearing a dark purple dress with gold accessories and plum flats. She looked nice, but not... perfect.
"Hmmm..." I said when she took the car keys off the hook.
"I'm not changing, Roxxie. I dressed like this on purpose. I don't want to go. But I will because we're friends, ok?"
"Yes, Alex. Come on. I don't want to be late for my first service."
"OK," she said politely, but with that face like she knew exactly
what was going to happen.
We exited the condo and hopped into my Barcelona red Corolla, that I
absolutely love. Alex, not so much. But, you know, I don't see her with
a car at all, so she has no talking power, whatsoever.
We drove in absolute silence. The most exciting thing about the whole
ride was almost being rear ended by a Hummer. When I was younger, there
was a small Hummer dealership in my neighborhood. The gleaming brand new
Hummers were always parked high on five foot tall hills of sand.
Eventually the dealership went out of business, as I had always supposed
it would, in a suburban area like that one. But who really even buys a
Hummer? They're kind of obnoxious. They use up alot of gas per mile, and
they only come in loud colors like banana yellow, and cherry red, and
lime green, and very, very, blue. Not to mention the fact that their
headlights are high beamers on top of the vehicle itself.
Anyway, a Hummer almost killed us on our way to church that Sunday
morning. I pulled into the parking lot of the church and instantly fell
in love with it. It was a lovely redbrick with Japanese cherry trees
planted out front. We parked the car and walked into the carpeted front
