The Odd Broad

Together, we'll jomple our pope, burn in our bishop, and all the clergy...

Growing up Catholic, I always wondered what happened after the people filed into line and walked to the front of the church.  I had my theories, of course; but my family usually sat in the back so it was difficult to see.  Either way, I was desperate to find out what went on up there.  And whatever it was they came back chewing on, I wanted in on it.  One time I even stage whispered to my older sister, "Bring me back one!"

She didn't. 

I found the mass to be an early morning, tranquilizing sequence of familiar yet puzzling words.  After spending so much time listening, I knew precisely which order they were to be recited in.  Some unknown part of my subconscious knew, for example, that a bell was supposed to ring after the priest said,

"Do this in memory of Me."

Ring-a-ding-a-ding!!!!

One Sunday somebody dropped the ball and didn't perform the ring, so I took it upon myself to do it for them, in my loudest voice: "Ring-a-ding-a-diiiiinnnnnggggg!"  My parents were very proud.

I'd memorized the mass, although most of it was rather hard to decipher.  For instance, when the Priest would say, "Together, with John Paul, our pope; Bernard, our bishop; and all the clergy...", what I actually heard was: "Together we'll jomple our pope, burn in our bishop, and all the clergy..." 

It would be years before I'd figure that mystery out.  (Jomple our pope?  Burn in our bishop?  It sounded violent.) 

Our priest at the time was a kind looking man named Father Sweeney.  I can still hear the soft, sing-song of his voice saying: "The Body of Christ..."

"Amen."

"Good, dear."  This was Massachusetts, of course, so in reality it sounded more like: "Good, Dee-yah."

In our spare time, Sissy and I would often reenact this holy scenario for fun.  ("The Body of Christ," "Amen," "Good, Dee-yah.")  Our mother would always look concerned.

My First Holy Communion was a most solemn event.  I have virtually no pictures from that day, which is strange, seeing as my father was the photographer hired for that occasion.  Back then he would sometimes work photography gigs on weekends to earn extra income.  He worked weddings, graduations; my father took beautiful photographs. 

There were no beautiful photographs taken of me that day.  (What's that adage about the cobbler's daughter having no shoes?  Or the sommelier's baby never having enough Riesling?)  As you may notice in the picture above, I was very much into the habit of sticking out my pointy finger.  This was one of many "habits," as we came to call them.  But that's a post for another day...

After the ceremony, I kept my white First Communion dress on, naturally, but I also decided to add a pair of gray corduroys and traded in my dainty white shoes for dirty white high tops.  It was a daring, edgy ensemble.  I looked hot and I knew it.  I'd also just gotten bangs cut, the act of which definitely marked the beginning of my "awkward" years. 

And I digress.  On the day of my First Holy Communion, we had a party and everyone gave me cards with money stuffed inside.  This was my first true taste of riches and I liked the way it felt, I liked it very much indeed.  Fives and tens and twenties, oh my!  Thanks, Jesus!

During this time I entertained lofty notions of becoming an author.  I would write mysteries, perhaps; about a group of child detectives.  I was obsessed with Louisa May Alcott and her novel Little Women, and I very much wanted a fountain pen so I could write my own masterpiece, old fashioned style.  When I counted up that money I knew immediately what I'd put it towards: I would buy myself a roll top desk.  I had grand visions of myself, sitting at that desk, fountain penning the next great novel of our time. 

This was also around the time I wrote to Louisa May Alcott and asked her for an autograph, and also some advice on how to get published.  I never did hear back from her.

My parents humored me.  I don't know what they must have thought when their seven year old daughter asked to spend her First Communion money on a piece of furniture.  All I know is, one day my father came home and began assembling my desk.  He stained it a warm brown color and gave it a coat of polyurethane to make it shine.  I still remember the way it smelled after the paint dried.  I loved everything about that desk, and I loved my father for making it happen.

That December, my friends really came through for me: for my birthday, I received a gold colored desk lamp, a desk pad, and my good friend Melissa even got me that fountain pen, complete with a whole bottle of blue ink.  It was...breathtakingly beautiful.  One of my better birthdays, if I remember correctly.

To this day that desk remains my most beloved piece of furniture.  I'm typing on it now, in fact.  Some kids wished for Cabbage Patch Dolls and trips to Disney.  I wished for fountain pens and a book deal.  I wished for petticoats and a lacy parasol.  I wished Louisa May Alcott would write me back, goddammit. 

I'm sorry

Dear God,

I am sorry that I used the word fuckface while passing a church today, when a man doing work outside flicked a burning cigarette that came inches from hitting me.  It was both an unladylike and immature way to react, although at the time it did feel like a perfectly natural thing to say. 

I will try to be more Zen.

Sincerely,

The Odd B.  xoxo

The God-mutha

This post comes to you a bit late in the day, Dear Reader, but for a worthy cause.  Luke the Wonder nephew has been baptized!  We just got back from Massachusetts a little while ago.

Being Lukey's Godmother, I wanted to give him something really meaningful as a gift.  I walked over to the Saint Patrick's Cathedral gift shop on my lunch hour last Wednesday hoping for divine inspiration.  What I ended up buying was a very pretty night light and a Saint Luke prayer card, but what I told my sister I'd bought was...a twelve inch statue of Jesus, Our Lord and Savior. 

I don't even know what possessed me to do this.  I got back to my desk and emailed Sissy that I'd bought a statue at Saint Pat's, not too big, only like twelve inches or so.  I later modified this and said that the height was actually fifteen inches, since unbeknownst to me, the ruler I'd used to measure was oversized.

I could tell Sissy was nervous.  Her tone was cautious: "Um, did you really do that?  I kind of think you're joking..."  I told her I most certainly wasn't joking, and that I'd had the statue blessed so there was definitely no returning Him now.  I also suggested that she could perhaps put Him in the back yard, if they ever move to the suburbs. 

As a final flair, I added that the Jesus statue also kind of matched the baby's bedding.  This is when Sissy frantically called our mother, who wondered if Jesus was clad in polka dots and multi-colored stripes.  I cleared up the confusion immediately by informing my sister that Jesus was wearing a sage green robe.  (Very tasteful and totally within the color scheme of the room.)

I don't know why things like this amuse me, but they do.  As the days wore on, news of my very special gift was spreading.  On Saturday morning my cell phone rang.  It was my cousin Keely:  "Did you really buy the baby a life size statue of Jesus?" 

I got to Sissy's apartment and told her the statue was in the trunk and we'd need help getting Him out.  (Apparently He'd grown over the past few days.)  She was relieved when I finally exposed my ruse.   

The Christening was lovely.  My eyes welled up as I stood next to my sister and her husband on the alter, rubbing Luke's chubby little baby arm and kissing his head, which smelled like olive oil from all that anointing.  He was very angelic up there on that alter. 

The hopes and dreams and love I feel for this baby are infinite and ever increasing.  He is more beautiful and sweet than anything I've ever seen.  Ah, Reader, I adore being a Godmother. 

At the suggestion of my dear friend Amy, all I need now is a pinky ring.  xoxo

Friday night dinner

How The Odd Broad is coping with meatless Fridays during Lent:Mashies w/Rosemary, garlic, shallots and butter A well-balanced meal if ever I saw one.  I may just become a full-time vegetarian.

Have holy water, will travel

My Mother always told me never to talk religion or politics, but oh well, I'm in the mood.

Ah, the Lenten season is upon us!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Catholic season of Lent and find yourself curious, please allow this semi-lapsed Catholic girl to enlighten you on the ins and outs of this exciting season filled with self-denial and meatless Fridays.

It all begins on Ash Wednesday, a day where Catholics fast by forgoing meat and eating one meal for sustenance or two small ones, depending.  I love these strange amendments to the rules.  Who makes them up?  If whoever's who can amend the meal rule, surely they can reverse the rule about women not being priests?  (Don't get me started.)

I had mac and cheese and Breyer's peanut butter cup ice cream for dinner this Ash Wednesday.  I'm not sure how many meals that counts as. 

On Ash Wednesday we go to church to get ashes rubbed onto our foreheads in the form of a cross.  As he ashes you, the priest murmurs "Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return," or something to that effect.  Very Gothic, I always think.  Macabre.  Kind of gives me the chills.  I'm not sure if they are good chills, though.  I don't know about you, but I'm in no hurry to return to dust.

The Lenten season lasts until Easter Sunday, when the Easter Bunny brings everyone Hershey Kisses, Cadbury Creme Eggs and hides miniature cans of Bud Light wrapped in colorful tin foil around the yard. 

Oh, he sometimes brings Marshmellow Peeps, too.  But I don't care for those.  Hear that, Easter Bunny?  No Peeps this year!  (Is it inappropriate for my sister and I to continue to request easter baskets well into my late twenties and her early thirties?  Nah.)

During the season of Lent we reflect upon the journey and message of Jesus and refrain from eating meat each Friday if we are between the ages of 15 and 58.  Although recently in Boston they deemed it ok to eat corned beef on Saint Patrick's day because it fell on a Friday.  What the?  Like people don't make fun of us Catholics enough already?  Seriously.

During Lent we also attempt to abstain from something meaningful, in the name of God.  The Odd Broad always has difficulty sticking to these resolutions.  I usually try to refrain from swearing, but this always winds up being an insurmountable challenge.  In the end I usually water it down to only being allowed to say shit, then everything but the F word, then who am I kidding it's time to think of something else to abstain from, for fuck's sake!

The same has happened with giving up drinking (No drinking at all!  Well, only on Fridays!  OK, only on Fridays, Saturdays, and sometimes Thursdays.  But not Sundays.  And only wine, but not good wine, terrible wine.  There.  I'm totally abstaining.  Hiccup.) 

Each Ash Wednesday I find myself peeking at the people coming out of line, post ashing, trying to judge the proportions of their crosses to see which line I should aim for.  Inevitably, I am always off.  Yesterday  I spotted a man with a tiny cross the size of a dime leaving the line on the left, so I hopped into that line.  Two seconds later I emerged with a cross that was approximately three inches long by three inches wide, Charlie Manson style.  Ok, I could work with this, I have bangs...

I like to think The Big Guy was chuckling at me from above, "Silly mortal, trying to get away with tiny ashes!"

This past Ash Wednesday I got my ashes on my lunch break at Saint Patrick's Cathedral.  This could pretty much be considered the drive-thru option as far as ashes go.  You're in, you're ashed, and you're out, all in under two minutes.  Truly the value meal of ashes.  More bang for your buck.  This is very different from the Ash Wednesdays of my youth, where we would sit through a 45 minute mass before getting to the main event. 

I've also received ashes in Queens, at a church that's over one hundred years old.  It's a lovely church, but if you ever find yourself there on a holy day of obligation, watch out!  You are about to witness some serious hijinks. 

You don't believe me?

One Palm Sunday a few years ago, while the priest was delivering his sermon, he felt it necessary to lecture his parishioners on the manners and etiquette of receiving the blessed palms.  A stern, chastising, priestly pep-talk, if you will:  "Only take one.  That's one palm per person.  This is not a buffet at your favorite diner, you cannot come back for seconds.  And please, no pushing, no shoving, we want to keep this...orderly and respectful." 

I suppressed a giggle.  I mean, I periodically feel like New York is a freak show, but this was downright odd.  It wasn't until I had reached the blessed palm buffet myself that I actually understood why the priest had deemed such a warning necessary.  People were acting insane!  Ca-RAY-zay!  Grown adults were pushing, cutting children in line, grabbing wildly for the palms.  This was mayhem, people, absolute bedlam!

This unusual episode made me very homesick for my hometown, where churches were repressed and civilized, where people didn't push in line to receive The Body of Christ and Palm Sundays posed no threat of physical harm.  Oh, and I'm not afraid someone is going to swipe my purse when I go up for communion there, either. 

I'll never forget my first Ash Wednesday in New York, at this same church in Queens.  After I received my ashes I went to go back to my seat, assuming there would be an ending to the mass.  But alas, how very wrong I was.  After receiving my ashes I was carried away on a wave, a wave in a terrible ocean of ashed-up Catholic maniacs.  I was in a veritable mosh pit of Catholics, fighting to make their way out of the door.  Hmmm?  Don't we have to, like, finish the mass?  What was this all about?  Was there a hidden camera somewhere?  Was I being punked?

Who WERE these wacky NY Catholics?  What kind of weirdo pushes and cuts in line at church?  While I'm at it, what kind of a nut leaves their cell phone on and, worse than that, answers it during the middle of the sermon?

The first time my husband went with me and my family to church was equally memorable.  He's not Catholic, and he wasn't sure if he could go up and receive the Eucharist with everyone else.  We decided he probably could, what was the big deal, right?  He went behind me in line, and when we got back to the pew he knelt down beside me. 

"What do I do?"  He whispered. 

"I don't know, say a little prayer?"  I answered. 

"No, what do I do with THIS?" 

Horrified, I looked down to see the Holy Eucharist in the palm of his hand.  Brian had carried The Body of Christ back to his seat.  What, was he going to take it home and spread hummus on it? 

"Eat it, quick!"  I whispered.  "It's blessed!  Just swallow it!"  Jeesh. 

We ended up getting married in the Catholic church and had to go to a one day seminar, to prepare.  While there we had to answer a series of questions, ranging in subject.  One of them was "What role do you think God will play in your marriage?"  I was taking this all very seriously.  When it came time for us to read our answer to our partner, mine was something earnest and heartfelt like, "God will hopefully be Someone we can turn to for strength, in happy and bad times, etc..."

What was my future husband's answer?  God will be playing the role of Himself.

I realize he was trying to be funny, but let's face it, it had been an exhausting day.  I started to weep, just a lil'.

My husband sort of remains bemused when it comes to the more mysterious side of Catholicism.  Like that time we were flying to Louisiana in a propeller plane during a tropical storm.  Nightmare, anyone?  We drank margaritas until they ran out of them, and in between terrified gulps I deemed it necessary to apply holy water to both of our foreheads.  Why did I have holy water upon my person, you might ask?  I don't know, I just did.

It's a mystery.

I love the mysticism, the quiet routine, the safety of it all.  I love that I can talk to Mary, the Blessed Mother, and the plethora of Saints and all they represent.  (Did you know there's a Saint for dentists?  And actors?  And exotic dancers?  OK, I think I'm making that last one up, but there probably should be.)

So I got ashed.  But I wasn't doing it for the Catholic church, I was doing it for the Big Guy Upstairs.  The ashes always leave me feeling shy, exposed.  Like I'm telling the world about a secret I don't usually talk about. 

Of course, nobody really said anything.  None of my coworkers said anything when I wiped my nose after touching my forehead and had a nose full of ash, either.  Thanks for that, guys. 

The odd thing is, after reading this, I can see how people might view me as either a religious fanatic, or a son-of-a-bitching bastard on her way to hell in a hand basket.  I am neither. 

I like my religion but just happen to find it...eccentric and sometimes infuriating and always familiar.  Like the strange smelling Great Aunt who you don't want to visit but once you get to her house you're somehow glad you came.  Because she baked cookies.  And pie. 

I don't mean to make fun of it, but I guess I kind of am.  Perversely, when a non-Catholic starts ragging on Catholicism it's like a kick in my nuts.  Figuratively speaking.  Much in the way it's ok to make fun of my own family but the minute someone else does it's no longer funny?

When all is said and done, I brake for the Big Guy Upstairs.  I brake for prayers to Mary, I brake for lighting candles in church when I'm feeling scared, and I brake for drunkenly anointing my husband's forehead with holy water on propeller plane rides.

OK, kids, now let's get out there and hunt for some mini beer cans!

Kiss it upta Jesus (or "That time I accidentally wore a see-through skirt")

I once heard a wise woman say something like this: Life is full of imperfect moments, challenges, little daily pickles that get in the way of us having a good time.  Her response to this conundrum: give it up to God.  Give everything up, release all the pissiness and crappiness that occurs in our daily lives.  Release the really bad stuff that happens, too, obviously, but I think she was focusing more on the smaller stuff here.  Give it all up, and this will create space for the more joyful moments to take center stage.

I pondered her words deeply.  See, this was a question that I'd already been contemplating for a long time.  I guess I've always pictured life as one big party, God's party, if you will.  And God has invited us all, in a sense, to His (or Her) Big Shindig.  (Go with me here, people) And all God probably wants us to do is enjoy ourselves at His Soiree: drink a little vino, hit up the open bar, nibble on the seafood, the fillet mignon, the mini wieners, and just have a good time. 

I honestly think most of the time it's us humans who can't just relax and take the stick out of our asses and simply enjoy ourselves at the big clambake of life.  And this makes The Baby Jesus cry.  (OK, weird Catholic moment there, sorry folks.)

I can't tell you how many mornings I've begun my day surrounded in splendor: the sun shining through my window, my cat's adorably furry face waking me up, coffee already percolating in the kitchen, little birds chirping on the sidewalk as I walk to the train...then I am out of the door for no more than two minutes when an SUV runs a stop sign and almost hits me.  And there I am, raging and muttering obscenities before it's even 7:30 am.  Something isn't right with this picture.  Nobody should utter the words douche bag before 8 am, it can't be good for your health.

And it's not like the dingbat in his SUV is going to have his morning ruined.  On the contrary, he probably doesn't even realize he's pissed anyone off.  So in the end, the only person I am really hurting by reacting to this situation is...myself.  What to do?  Kiss it upta Jesus.

But seriously, this is NY, if I kissed every irritating person up to The Lord I'd be making out with 99.99% of the damn city!  In the strictly figurative sense, of course.

Every person alive is fighting some kind of battle.  Where did I hear this quote?  On Oprah?  In Reader's Digest?  I can't remember.  But the words struck me.  The idea itself is so logical: every seemingly rude person may simply have something larger going on, making it impossible for them to mind their manners.  The thing is, it's so easy to forget this!  It's almost as if I have to constantly remind myself every five seconds to be calm, to not react to every little slight, to be forgiving. 

Maybe I should tie a ribbon around my finger to remind myself?  Or perhaps someone will invent a gadget that gives out an electric shock every time I react to someone being an asshole?  Because in reacting, I become the asshole and then I feel...bad.  (And then The Baby Jesus cries.)

Or, what about when I'm the bothersome person?  For some reason this always comes as a shock to me.  My husband was the first to bring this to my attention.  I was getting off the train and he was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps.  My cell phone was ringing and I was trying in vain to grab my cell out of my bag, look for my husband, zip my jacket and walk down the stairs all at the same time.  When I finally reached him he said, "Sarah, you were walking so slow, you were being one of those people."  Dun-dun-DUN!!!  The music swelled. 

Is't possible I could be one of those people?  Surely not! 

We all take a turn at being the offender, I suppose.  This is obvious, or there wouldn't be so many aggravating people around.  Hmmm.

It's always especially entertaining to witness someone else getting irate.  Like when the people trying to get onto the subway are blocking the way for the people trying to get off of the subway and all of a sudden someone loses it and shouts, "Move!  What is wrong with you people!?"  And then I can just smile serenely and look at the crazy person and be glad that I didn't lose my temper in such a fashion. 

Of course, nine times out of ten the nut who is yelling in public is me.

This can backfire, of course.  My hard learned advice to you is this: before you reprimand an annoying person in public, be sure they are actually directing their disturbing behavior at you...(Can you tell a painful anecdote is coming?) 

One day last summer I was wearing my taupe colored silk crinkle skirt.  Before I left for work I had examined myself in the mirror, trying to step into the sunlight as I did so to be certain the skirt wasn't see-through.  It wasn't.  It wasn't, right?  I woke up my hubby to ask him.  It wasn't.  Good thing, because I didn't have a slip anyway.

That was the week I bought my pedometer.  I love that thing!  It's the perfect invention for a hypochondriac with self-diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder, like myself.  (Counting the steps!  Counting the steps!)  I was averaging 10,000 steps a day, which they say is the goal.  Who says this, you ask?  They do!

Anyway, as I walked I started to notice I was getting very strange looks.  Leers, lascivious glances and crude invitations were being tossed in my direction and it was with horror that I realized what was going on:  My skirt must be see-through after all!  Mortified, I ducked into a shady spot and called my sister from my cell phone. 

Me:  "I think my skirt is see through!"

Sissy: "Why?"

Me: "Because people are looking at me like I'm the whore of Park Avenue!  I'm giving a smutty lunchtime show to all and sundry!"

At least I was wearing Granny underwear that day.  (Who am I kidding, I always wear granny underwear.)

The worst part of it was, I had walked such an immense distance from work in order to get my step count up that now I was forced to walk all the way back.  That day I invented a new kind of walk of shame:  Walking while wearing a see-through skirt down the blindingly sunny streets of Manhattan. 

That night, as I recalled the lewd comments and looks I had endured, I made a promise to myself.  The next time someone said something filthy to me I was going to retaliate.  I didn't know how, and I didn't know when, but somehow I was going to exact my revenge on mankind.

I didn't have to wait long.  A few days later I went out for my lunchtime walk, sneakers on, my trusty pedometer firmly attached to my waist.  I had a skirt on that day, too, but there was a built-in slip so there was no chance I would be x-rated that afternoon.  This outfit had a G rating.

And there I was, steppin' along, when out of nowhere I heard, "Heeyyy Sexx-y!!"

That. Was. It.  I turned to the men, who were loading boxes onto a truck, and immediately gave them the finger and screamed out "F@*# you!" 

But here's the thing.  You know how sometimes things happen so rapidly, too rapidly for your brain to keep up with your...mouth?  If I could have replayed the awful scene in slow motion, here is what I would have seen, because after a quarter of a second, when my brain caught up with my mouth, this is what I realized:

After the men had called out "Hey sexy!" and I was turning and raising my finger, they noticed me and called out, "Oh, you too, you're sexy too..." in a shrugging, half-hearted kind of way.  But by then it was too late, my finger was raised and the nasty words were already spewing out of my rotten mouth.  It was too late.  Too late for me to realize these men weren't actually speaking to me. 

Yes, as much as it pains me to admit this, I was not the original sexy woman in question, the men were directing their comment to the sexy lady next to me.  I mean, let's face it, I didn't even look remotely cute that day.  I was wearing sneakers with a skirt and had a pedometer attached to my hip.  As I walked away in disgrace they called out, "Well, you're not sexy now!" 

Oh dear.  I had jumped the gun and performed a premature simultaneous finger flip/F Bomb at men who weren't even talking to me!  All I could do was let my feet carry me away on a cloud of shame as I walked as quickly as I possibly could.  Oh shit!  This was bad.  I was failing at life.  The Baby Jesus was definitely crying. 

I wasn't even that far from work, what if someone had seen me?  I can just picture the shock of one of my co-workers seeing mild mannered Sarah flipping the bird to men for seemingly no reason.

I turned a corner and immediately called my Sister but she wasn't there.  Damn.  I left her a message: "Sissy, I just gave the finger and told these men to eff off because I thought they had called me sexy but it turns out they weren't talking to me, they were talking to a sexy lady nearby." 

I called my husband, but I decided to give him the edited version: "Babe, I flipped these men the bird and told them to F themselves for calling out 'hey sexy.'  Is that... bad?"

Hubby: "Well, you shouldn't be yelling at strangers, I thought you were gonna stop doing that?"

OK, my broken spirit had been humiliated enough, I was waiting until later to tell him the other half of my story.  As in, the men weren't actually calling me sexy...

By the time my sister called me back she was almost in tears and could barely speak with the laughter that was erupting out of her mouth.  "You, you, you swore at people and they weren't even talking to you?" 

These are the days when The Odd Broad really feels like a deficient human being.

Perhaps I had taken a stand for all womankind?  Perhaps I was exacting revenge upon all of the chauvinistic, disrespectful men out there? 

Perhaps I should have just... kissed it upta Jesus.

One of these days I'll get it.  In the meantime, please don't push me, or accidentally wack me in the shin with your briefcase, or cut me in line at CVS, or utter the words "hey sexy!" anywhere in my vicinity.  Because then I might be forced to kiss you up to Our Lord Jesus.  And I may or may not have a breath mint in my mouth that day.

Sharing is caring

Ok, so I've gathered over the years that good deeds lose some of their natural goodness when you tell people about them.  Seriously, if you want your deeds to count as really really good ones, you're better off zipping your pie-hole.  (Or mojito-hole, as I once heard someone call it.  teehee) 

But what about an accidental good deed that mistakenly gets noticed, or a deed that stems only from being a crazy neurotic and ends up earning unwanted praise and misdirected admiration? Is this type of deed not only considered not good, but double bad?

Generally I'm not a wasteful person, so I don't make a habit out of this...but there have been occasions when I've waited in line forever, received terrible service, and have watched in dumbfounded stupor as the person serving me does something so questionable that after I pay for whatever it is I'm getting, I find myself compelled to either give the thing away or throw it out. Do I sound sick? Perhaps. But seriously, a strange man blowing on my breakfast sandwich kind of spoils it, don't you agree?

Allow me, if you would, to elaborate:

For starters, I think being a crackhead must be one of the prerequisites to being hired at the Au Bon Pain near my work. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with being a crackhead, but...

The other morning before work I stopped in to pick up a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on a croissant. "Do you want me to to try toasting this?" The man behind the counter asked me with this skeptical grin. "Um, sure, I guess?" I answered. "Well, if it catches on fire then it's your fault, not mine," was his reply.

Hmmm, this certainly had all the makings of a disaster. I checked my watch: one minute to go before I was officially late for work. Why had I come here again?  Mama Mia.

The man went into the back for a suspiciously long time, I'm guessing to fetch my croissant. He came back and put said pastry into the toaster and then watched as it eventually went up in flames. That's when he grabbed it and proceeded to blow all over it to put out the flames.

He inspected the burnt croissant and for a horrified moment I thought he was actually going to put my eggs and bacon on it. That's when I asked, "Um, do you think I could get another one please? And you don't have to toast it this time, it's ok."  "You don't want me to toast it?" he asked. "No, that's ok you don't have to toast it." (Don't f-ing blow on it either, I wanted to say.)

This reminded me of one time I went into Hale and Hearty Soup to get lunch. The surly girl behind the counter slopped some chicken noodle soup into a cup and started wiping the sides with her hands, and, well, to be honest, I don't remember the exact details of whatever disgusting thing I thought she had done to my soup.  I only know I decided then and there I wouldn't be able to eat it. Even as I was paying the five bucks and change for it I knew I would not be having soup for lunch.

I went outside and stopped in front of the homeless lady I had seen sitting outside of the abandoned YWCA. "Do you want some soup?" I asked. She said yes and I gave it to her. It wasn't a big deal because I already had some leftover pizza in the fridge at work, I would just eat that instead. See? It had all worked out nicely.

I entered my building to go back into work and got into the elevator with a crowd of people. One of them was a friend of mine and he asked, "Hey, Sarah, did I just see you talking to that homeless woman out there? What were you guys talking about?"

He had caught me off guard.  I babbled, "Oh, nothing, I was just giving her my soup..." He gave me this admiring look and said, "You gave her your lunch? Wow, that was really nice of you!" Of course now everybody in the elevator was staring at me, trying to sneak a peek at the Mother Theresa wannabe who had given her lunch away to the homeless. Little did they know my actions had stemmed more out of sick obsessiveness than selflessness.

A lady turned to me and said, "That was a really nice thing for you to do." My cheeks started to burn. Well, what was I supposed to say? That the girl at Hale and Hearty had gotten her dirty fingers all over my soup so I gave it away to a homeless lady because it was too nasty to eat myself?

This wasn't the first time I've been the recipient of undeserved praise and fanfare. There was that time in Kindergarten when my friend Stephanie had forgotten her snack at snack time.  Do you remember Zingers, those creme filled pastries with the yummy frosting on top? I loved Zingers. I used to peel off the frosting part first and then eat the rest later. Anyways, Stephanie was sitting next to me and I noticed she didn't have a snack so I neatly peeled off the chocolate frosting and gave it to her. You know, no big woop.

The next morning I was surprised to find a small package in my cubby at school. Inside I found two beautiful barrettes with my name on them from Stephanie's Mom. These were some really good looking hair clips. 

I went home and a bit guiltily showed the gift to my Mom, who called Stephanie's Mother to thank her. "Stephanie forgot her snack yesterday and Sarah shared hers and we wanted to say thank you!" she gushed.

Now this was a conflict of morals.  I had really mixed emotions about the whole situation. I mean, let's face it, I had given her the frosting off of my zinger. This wasn't a beautiful, rainbow-colored-barrettes worthy deed, was it? Apparently it was.  Even at the tender age of five I knew something had been lost in the translation, but still, I decided to be philosophical about it. After all, I suppose the chocolate frosting on the zinger could be considered the best part...

I guess being wrongly labeled a generous do-gooder is better than not ever having been mistaken for one at all, right?

In the end, I suppose all good deeds are probably counted: the neurotic ones, the accidental ones, and even the not as good as people think they are, but still nice all the same ones, too.  So there.  Stick that in your soup and eat it.  Teehee.