I should've just gone to the whorehouse . . .

Last night we ended up going to sleep ridiculously early. Ridiculous. Like, 7 pm , ridiculous.
On the bright side, during one of the many, many sleep-addled visits to the loo that peppered the next 11 hours, I had a moment of clarity.
If we were all going to be getting such a good nights sleep , there was no reason on Earth why we all couldn't get our lazy butts up and out of bed the next morning for church.
Let me fill you in about " Church".
I am personally coming off a six year run of one horrid clergy-person after another. It started with a Non-denominational one who had , shall we say " drank the Kool-aide, and was a little too "fresh" . Then there was the Rabbi, by the time he had finished with me I had morphed into a neurotic, emotionally insecure mess it would take years to recover from . Then there was another 'Christian ' congregation who had already said some very hurtful and unnecessary things to us that made us question whether or not we belonged there long before we realized they were sponsered by Chic-Fil-A and realized we needed to high-tail it the heck out of there. The Piece d' Resistance though, came when hubby's priest of 20 plus years turned our "pre-marital counseling" into a witch hunt and F.U.B.A.R'd our wedding, or at least our being able to have it in the church.
 In the last 18 months, we have only set foot in a church service three times, and all three were for recital's / plays, or other performances that munchkin was doing at her parochial school in " The City".

We have not gone to church for the sake of spirituality in 18 months.

This was a BIG step.

Once I had managed to rouse everyone the morning went something like this.

Hubby: i'm going to need a clean shirt for this hon.

Munckin: what am I suppossed to wear to this thing ?

Quiser : I'll grab you a shirt , little bit, your just gonna have to dress yourself.

M: aww, mom. . .

H: thanks hon !

After procuring the shirt I set to work trying to find something clean for me to wear, which was rather difficult  as I am the last one to get clean laundry , and the last one to get put away laundry etc in this house, so my wardrobe was spread out between the obvious places, like my drawers and my closet, and the not so obvious places , like clothes baskets in the living room, and the dryer. I had just found a workable blouse, when . . .

M: ( wearing a dress that's way too tight) Mom, i can't get this zipped will you help meeeeeeeee ! ( the last part is screeched)
Q: honey, you outgrew it your going to have to pick out something else.

As she runs off in a huff to her bedroom i continue searching for pants that don't look like I mowed the lawn in them.

She re-enters in last years Christmas dress , with sleeves that are still 4 inches too long.

M: these sleeves are too long. we must cut them.

Q: we could hem them, but my sewing machine isn't unpacked yet. we absoloutly will NOT cut them.

M; but Mom !

Q: But NO.Finish getting dressed.

M : I am dressed.

Q: you have shoes on then ?

M: ( Looks at bare feet) no.  I think i'm gonna just wear my flip flops.

( I had to almost physically resatrain myself to keep from hitting the roof over this . Flip-flops in church ! My mother would have had a heart attack on the spot if I had tried such a thing when I was her age. I had to keep telling myself , " It's a molehill Quiser, it's a molehill" )

Q: Well , okay :-) (forced smile ) just make sure you wash your face , brush your teeth and comb your hair.

M: alright Mom ! :-)

Five minutes later Hubby and Munchkin are dressed and waiting on me in the living room. I am still running around in my knickers ( at least i found some ) and trying to find some pants.

15 minutes later , I finally find some pants . They aren't the ones I wanted, but they will work. Feeling slightly victorious I emerge from the bedroom to the sound of discord in my home. I settle the (thankfully minor ) dispute , and give everyone their marching orders.

we begin driving like crazy people to the Mayberry McDonald's . ( wasn't about to chance Carl's Jr again after yesterday's gravy episode)

he bad side of this is that the Mayberry Mickey D's is notorious for magerking your order. So Munchkin ended up with an adult sized caffinated beverage ( a known recipe for disaster) and they forgot her breakfast all together, which meant she got half of mine, so I was hungry , which makes me cranky . However it bears mentioning her cranky hungry is a LOT worse and far more unbearable than mine .

After dealing with the dingbats at the McD's , I was a little agitated.

The agitation was stirred by cries of " mom they gave me a big drink " " this is hot " " this isn't what I ordered" from the back seat , answered by the hubby from the front trying his best in his own way to smooth things over  because he knows trying to get across the main drag in heavy traffic makes me nervous. it is lost on both of them that the constant bickering has a negative effect on my concentration.
we manage to get out onto the main drag, but not before nearly getting our bumper torn off by an asshat in a pick-up truck, and then getting tail-gated for the next mile by some yuppy in a caddy.

The next three turns I made were all wrong ones. After the third wrong turn I started thinking / praying aloud.

" Sweet Baby Jesus ,I could understand if I was going to the whorehouse, or the bar , or the strip club , or the drug dealers house you making it so hard, but church ?  Church is only 2 stinking miles from our house ! I am a pretty decent God-fearin' woman , I shouldn't have to fight the blasted one-woman-battle-of -bull-run to try and get my family a little Jesus !  Seriously ! Mercy ! Please ! "

At this point , we had finally arrived in the church parking lot, and all was blessedly silent.

"alright everybody. can we just finish our food in peace and go inside ?"

After breakfast had been devuored, we managed to get inside with only a minor argument between me and hubby over which entrance to use.

We enjoyed a lovely service, lovely fellowship, and the Eucharist , for the first time in 18 months.

They had childcare. Munchkin was beside herself with joy. So much so that she didn't want to go home.

for a few minutes, we were again a blissfully happy little family :-)

We bribed her away with promises of " pick out food " (otherwise known as the local Chineese buffet)

the two of them then began arguing over which one to go to.

This is the point where I threw in the towel, slammed both hands on the steering wheel  and screamed out ,

" I should've just gone to the damn whorehouse ! "