Bless Me Father, For I Have Sinned

It has been thirty years since my last confession.

I have broken all the commandments, save #'s 2, 6 and 7.  That's not so bad, right?

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.  When I was in junior high school I used to cut out pictures of hot guys in magazines and plaster them on any surface that I possessed as my own.  Notebooks, lockers, bedroom walls, etc.  I blame The New Kids On The Block.  They were the ones that first tested my will back in 1990 with giant posters of yummy boys.  Also, I sometimes pray to the Gods at Hostess begging for Ding Dongs to rain from the heavens.  

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.  I have no excuse for number three except to say that sometimes it just slips and then I suffer unimaginable guilt for days afterward.  Unlike all those times when I was ten and mad at my parents and would hide in my closet chanting "Shit, Damn, Hell" over and over again until I wasn't mad.  I felt no guilt then.  Not even when those words were no longer effective on their own and I had to throw in a "Sunnufabitch". 

Thou shalt keep the Sabbath Day holy.  Living in Utah makes #4 really tough.  We certainly try to make the Sabbath a day of rest and worship, but sometimes we need to get out of the house and I don't know what an appropriate Sunday activity is outdoors.  We went hiking once.  And another time we came home from church and found that all the meat was frozen and there was nothing for dinner, so I ran out to get Chinese food.  It was really scary to try to get that all back in the house without any of the neighbors seeing the take-out bags.  And you know that everyone is sitting in their darkened living room watching for sinners to emerge from their cars with Sabbath Day contraband so they can report someone to the bishop or at least gossip in Relief Society.  

Thou shalt honor thy mother and thy father.  Honoring my father and mother has always been easier to do in spirit than in reality.  I love my parents more than any other child could ever love theirs, but I don't always show it.  Like in high school, I never would have done a can-can flash dance in front of all the Freshmen if I'd been respecting what my parents taught me.  Nor would I have watched Knocked Up.  At least not without a paper bag over my head.

Thou shalt not steal.  When I was five, I broke the eighth commandment for the first time.  It was a really tasty package of bubble gum which I kindly shared with my sister in the privacy of the top bunk in our bedroom.  It had juice in the middle.  In later years I stole a heck of a lot of money from my father's quarter box over the span of a year.  At one point my dad had to tape a note to the tin box asking the unknown thief to please stop stealing from their father.  I went ahead and took $22 in quarters that time.  I didn't realize the foolishness of that act until I was at Olive Garden with my boyfriend and the humiliation of having to pay our tab entirely in quarters hit me like a brick and I faked a headache, went out to the car and stuck my guy with the bill.  I could have said something like, "Gee, I seem to have forgotten my wallet.  Could you pick this up?", but that didn't occur to me at the time.  Just the idiocy of what I had done stuck.  I don't think I've stolen anything since then.  Why was I paying the bill for our date on that night, you wonder?  Well, good question.  He was young.  That's all I got.

Thou shalt not bear false witness.  Ah, number nine.  Pulling up all those marigolds and trying to blame it on the mean girl who was at the sitter's with us, but getting caught red-handed.  Dirt and marigolds clenched in my fists and staring, completely frozen, at the lady who owned the flowers, who happened to be my dad's cousin.  But that didn't teach me a lesson.  Well, not one that lasted until I turned sixteen anyway.  I was always a terrible liar, but I did it anyway.  Clear up to the time I got tired of being a newlywed who's husband stayed up until 2 a.m. on the weekends and then slept until one in the afternoon.  When I had had enough of that I crushed a Unisom between two spoons and mixed it into a Sprite for my husband, who thanked me for the drink and consumed my drugged offering in about ten minutes and shortly thereafter proclaimed to be unusually tired and suggested we hit the hay.  Good, idea, Babe, I'll just go turn down the sheets.  

Thou shalt not covet.  Sheesh, the coveting.  Have you seen Tiger Wood's house?  Course, that's probably not his for long.  Have you checked out Vera Ellen's body?  I will never stop being envious of her legs.  Or her waist.  I have a long way to go with the coveting issue.

And then a few weeks ago I {almost} committed a felony which I can't tell you about because that one is going with me to my grave.  But I can tell you that I'm pretty sure it would fall into the #9 category and that I will never be tempted to do it again because I so completely botched it the first time.  

Now, if only I were Catholic.  Repentance would be so much easier if I could just say a few Hail Mary's or something.