religion

Queerer than we can suppose—Q&A with the kiddies

My Fellow Inebriates,

I fell asleep huddled among the empties last night, which meant I was in the kitchen for the following breakfast conversations.

V: Mummy, did the Easter Bunny write my name on this Kit Kat bunny?

Mum: Yup.

V: Oh. Because I thought you wrote it.

Mum: Nope. And it’s not for eating right now.

V: I know that. The puppy knows everything.

Even though V likes to refer to herself in the third person, her bullshit meter is sharp. My parents will get away with Easter Bunny activities for another year maybe, if that—and it won’t be their eldest who drops the bomb; it’ll be four-year-old Miss V.

▪ ▪ ▪

If you’ve ever tried to get a grade one and a preschooler off to school by 8:31 (yes, union regulations dictate that school starts not at 8:30 but 8:31), you know what a scramble it is. I’m not usually awake for it, but since I’d made my nest among the beer bottles, I had a listening post.

P: Mummy, do we believe in God?

Mum: Well, you can if you want, it’s up to you. What do you want, cereal or toast?

P: I mean, is God real?

Mum: Well, a lot of kids in your class probably go to church, right?

P: Uh huh. Do we go to church?

Mum: Nope. Cereal or toast?

P: Why not?

Mum: Because it’s totally boring. You have to sit still for, like, an hour and be really quiet.

P: I think I’ll believe whatever you believe.

Mum: That’s usually the way it works in families. But it’s up to you. Cereal?

This isn’t as negligent as it sounds. If P really wanted to go to church, my mum would find a churchgoing acquaintance to take her. And then she’d bore the shit out of the kid deconstructing the whole thing afterwards. My mum loves religion. She just doesn’t believe in it.

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P: Mummy, why do grown-ups smell?

Mum: Like, why do they have body odor and bad breath and stuff?

P: Yeah.

Mum: Well, it all comes down to hormones. Where are your shoes? Grab your shoes.

P: Hormones?

Mum: Yeah, body odor is all about territoriality and mating. Got the black shoes?

P: Mating?

Mum: Yeah, you know, because humans are basically animals, and animals like each other’s smells; that’s why they mate. Three minutes, guys, we gotta go.

P: You mean, like get together?

[And P mimes a big hug. Three minutes is not enough to get into this.]

Mum: Kind of like getting married—animals getting married. They like each other’s smells so they get together and have babies. Just like Daddy and I have babies. Got your shoes? Okay, which jacket?

P: Oh, but Daddy has showers so he can smell good.

Mum: I know, isn’t it awesome?

▪ ▪ ▪

Whatever contradictions manage to coexist in our brains, the kids’ questions do not stop. Get this one.

P: Mummy, is LB real?

Mum: Of course he’s real. Look at him.

P: I mean, is he alive?

Mum: Yeah. Of course.

P: But he’s a stuffie!

Mum: A what?

P: He’s a stuffed animal.

Mum: Oh. Then how did he wink that day when we bought him?

P: But he doesn’t move.

Mum: Sure he moves.

P: No, you move him!

Mum: What are you talking about? That’s crazy.

P: Mummy!

Mum: He’s perfectly real. There’s a whole construct called “LB.” He’s as solid an idea as anything else. The notion of LB exists, and the people around him support it.

[At which point P is moved to hug yours truly. This either represents a point for a mother trying to score points off her child, or the indulgence of a child who knows her mother is batshit crazy.]

Mum: Stranger things are believed in by more people based on a lot less evidence. LB has a blog. Of course he exists.

[And then she makes it weirder.]

Mum: I even saw a bunch of little bears that look just like LB in Save-On Foods. Just like him, only really small, for $2.99. They’re probably his offspring.

OMG!

(While walking to school)
V: Mummy, I wish that person wouldn’t leave dog shit all over the ground.

MOLSON CANADIAN—Drink if you’re hot, thirsty, or wearing a mullet

My Fellow Inebriates,

Ever since an old derelict outside Superstore tried to bless the kids and then damned the whole family to hell when my mum wouldn’t let him, the Langley township itself has been on her shitlist, as though its very geography is a magnet for religious mania, something she suspects abounds at the local elementary school.

So when Miss V’s teacher started waving packets of Kool-Aid around this morning, my mother wasn’t impressed. She didn’t have the energy to thwart a Canadian Jonestown so early in the morning, nor did she want her stupid-looking hair to end up on TV.

But before you could say “Hallelujah,” Miss V’s teacher was mixing that Kool-Aid (not even cherry, but lemon) into a batch of homemade play dough. Yes indeed, if you’re tired of shelling out for actual Play-Doh, you can make your own with just a few ingredients:

KOOL-AID PLAYDOUGH

    • 1 cup flour
    • ½ cup salt
    • 2 tsp cream of tartar
    • 1 package unsweetened Kool-Aid, any flavor
    • 1 tbsp cooking oil
    • 1 cup boiling water

Combine dry ingredients. Add oil and boiling water. Mix with a spoon. As soon as the mixture is cool enough, knead together with your non-furry, opposably thumbed hands. Store in airtight container.

Fifteen minutes later the kids were sculpting lemon-scented masterpieces, including this handsome sculpture of yours truly.

OMG, what the hell is that little piece over there supposed to be?

Not content with mere verisimilitude, Miss V insisted on adding a long braid to the bear. She was thinking Rapunzel, although you might think mullet.

If she’d meant mullet she would have been reading my mind, because while she and Mum were sculpting, I was waking to memories of MOLSON CANADIAN.

The MOLSON CANADIAN bottle had come from next door (not the next-door neighbors who hate us, but the normal people on the other side). They don’t wear mullets, but last night they were going to wall-mount some speakers with the wires dangling visibly down the wall, which is pretty much the same thing. When they tried to borrow a tool from my dad, he rushed over to help them hide their unsightly wires and returned with a MOLSON CANADIAN.

The neighbors hadn’t asked for my dad’s help, but he is obsessive about visible wires in other people’s houses. (Our own house, which is festooned with wires and littered with teeny tiny bolts/screws/unidentifiables, is another matter and does not fall within my dad’s OCD radar.) Having recently shut down his home theater business, which had involved a lot of hands-on installation, my dad must have been itching to make holes in the neighbors’ wall, because he practically bounded next door to help. And lucky for him, they were breaking out the MOLSON CANADIAN.

This is a lager that reminds me of hockey and parking lots and camping. It’s a nostalgic brew for a lot of Canadians who started drinking beer before macrobreweries came into force. Wan and straw-colored with a quickly dissipating head, CANADIAN gives off a signature macro-brew graininess—corn, white bread, no-name toaster waffles and minimal malt. The first taste is crisp, thin, and refreshingly fizzy if cold, but the beer grows less charming as it warms.

The clock is a real enemy to MOLSON CANADIAN; with each half-degree the beer rises, it becomes less palatable and more metallic. But—importantly—this beer is inoffensive when cold. If you’re really thirsty, a CANADIAN from an ice-filled cooler is like liquid manna in the dessert, replete with the requisite breadiness. My dad didn’t turn it down after he’d finished fixing up the neighbors’ system, and he didn’t bitch about it either.

And needless to say, MOLSON CANADIAN beats the crap out of lemon Kool-Aid.

Soulless on Good Friday—what’s a bear to do?

My Fellow Inebriates,

The Watchtower flyer inserted through our door this week has been on my mind, especially after Pascal’s Wager for Animals showed me the Nothingness that awaits your furry host here at the End of Days. Add to that some general anxiety about Good Friday and its attendant imagery (OMG! I don’t understand it!), a paucity of liquor at LBHQ, PLUS some bear-meat wine pairing suggestions from beerbecue (Dude!), and you have one anxious bear.

I think I’d feel better if we’d been around for the Jehovah’s Witnesses who pushed that flyer through the door crack. Back when we lived in East Vancouver they used to visit all the time. Miss P was a newborn living perpetually in my mum’s lap. My mum used to get powerfully restless, so whenever the JWs rang the bell, she let them in and we hung out.

Our guests were so well dressed and so well behaved that it was a pleasure to let them steer the conversation. Knackered from night-time feedings, my mum was content to explore topics with them such as “Do Children Change a Marriage?” and “Is It Later Than You Think?” So low-maintenance were our JW visitors that they declined every hospitable offer—tea, cookies, blood transfusions—with the utmost grace. Nor could they be flustered by my mother’s insensitive questions about the declared capacity limits of Heaven as it bore on our friends’ dauntless recruiting program. They were unflappable.

“How many souls can fit into Heaven?” my mother would demand as she yanked a flaccid boob out of Miss P’s mouth and shoved in a turgid one. “I heard it’s a really small number, like 144,000 or something. Is Heaven two-tiered, then? Is there another layer that I can get into if I don’t make the cut?”

I can’t remember what they answered, nor their response to “Do you think we should put candles or a sparkler on Daddy’s birthday cake?” But today’s anxieties prompted me to look for the answer about Heaven’s capacity. I know animals are banned, but did my mum have that number right? Is there some sort of celestial fire marshal who’ll go medieval if more than 144,000 enter?

The Watchtower website is very friendly and has a list of topics. I got so distracted by these topics that I forgot what I was looking for in the first place. For instance, Young People Ask…Should I Get a Tattoo? It turns out Mosaic Law forbids tats (damning uncounted People of Walmart) because they smack of false worship. But the Watchtower is so friendly in delivering this admonition. Sure, it cites Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Collossians, Ephesians, and Corinthians. But it also cites a dermatologist who warns about the risk of infection. And lastly it appeals to teenagers’ need for acceptance—“‘I got a tattoo before learning about Jehovah,’ relates Amy. ‘I try to keep it covered. When others in the congregation happen to see it, I feel embarrassed.’” And it ends on a catchy note: “Think before you ink.”

I was also distracted by Music That Pleases God. According to the flyer, God really likes music, which makes sense because He invented it. But is there such a thing as Music That Displeases God? You gotta know it, my fellow inebriates. “Pagan fertility rites, the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul, and the veneration of Mary as ‘mother of God’” are themes that dishonor God. Suffice to say When I find myself in times of trouble/Mother Mary comes to me (whether “Mother Mary” actually refers to Jesus’s mum or not) does not warble out of any JW speakers.

My mum let me down in lots of ways during those visits of 2006. She failed to ask animal-centered questions (“Does LB have a soul?” “Can you confirm that it is wrong—terribly wrong—to eat bear meat?”) And I always wished, during those visits in 2006, that it had occurred to her to bring out a tray of gin-and-tonics. But she insisted we behave ourselves. Our guests didn’t want to impose on us—at least not materially. We were allowed to interrogate them because it helped them train to be better soldiers for Christ. But we mustn’t be obnoxious.

Nothing to do with the JW take on Good Friday, but scary nonetheless.
Photo: Reuters

The JWs did eventually stop visiting us in East Vancouver. It wasn’t because they realized we weren’t going to join the flock—they weren’t idiots, but they had to put in x number of hours to fulfill their religious obligations, and we were reasonably easy to hang out with. Their visits ended simply because, several times in a row, they called at inconvenient times—just before a swimming lesson or a doctor’s appointment, say—and my mum was rushing out the door, or about to be. As I say, they weren’t idiots, and they must have felt she was giving them the heave-ho.

They’re welcome to visit us in Langley. But if they do, we’re gonna ask some questions about animals. (Why can I not be saved? OMG!) Then we’ll break out the booze and ask them for their tasting notes.