I, God’s mediocre servant Adrienne, would like to thank the Lord Most High for wireless internet connectivity in the airport.
I would also like to ask God to bless the OBNOXIOUS man at the next table over who feels the need to shout at the top of his lungs at his Blackberry and laptop. I’m sure he’s terribly busy and important and owns many leather bound books. Forgive me, blessed Divine, for wishing his head would inflate like a balloon and float away into the clear, blue yonder.
I am traveling from Pennsylvania back to Boston. Pennsylvania, the land of my perpetual teenage angst. It doesn’t matter how educated I will be after the decade-long turn in Boston. It doesn’t matter that my hair now has highlights, my eyebrows are now two distinct, sculpted entities, that my pants now rest on my hips and cover the tops of my Doc Martens rather than fit snugly under my underarms and come up three inches too short above my LA Gear. Whenever I return to my hometown, my hair instantly feathers itself sky high and I desperately try to rekindle my electric youth.
Also in Pennsylvania, I am brought out by relatives to enjoy the social activities that I did as a teenager. Maybe some people went through a rebellious phase. Me? I once demanded to stay home from church and I watched Poltergeist II and was so scared of mirrors I couldn’t sleep for a week. I never missed church again (and we were there a good four days a week). My rebellious phase thus lasted for less than 24 hours. As such, I would often attend the local offerings in terms of entertainment. This visit home was no different.
This time, I went to a picnic fundraiser at the Lutheran Assisted Living and Retirement Village. And by “picnic,” I mean, “event held indoors where they served monochromatic foods, one of which I am pretty sure was potato salad.” My presence in the room brought the average age of the attendees down from octogenarian to septuagenarian, I think.
The party was wild but THEN the entertainment came out--a musical group called Dan and Galla. Dan and Galla, two of the most earnest performers on the planet. Dan and Galla, rockin’ Lutheran retirement communities since rock (though, probably not the residents of said communities) was young. Dan and Galla, who brought instruments for audience participation.
I found myself thinking that surely this was what the elevator music in hell sounded like.
And it wasn’t that Dan and Galla were bad. Oh no, friends. They sang will all their hearts and the people loved them. But they started with a song called, “Polka Time.” I know this because my beloved mother said excitedly, “Oh, it’s Polka Time!” I think her glee came partly from the fact that she enjoys polka (how we share the same genetic material, I don’t know) and partly from the fact that she knew I was going to have to sit through A SONG CALLED POLKA TIME. I sighed and put my head on the Lutheran Assisted Living and Retirement Village table.
For the second number, Dan and Galla played with William Tell Overture on the Washboard. With gun shells on their fingers. Galla held out the washboard to the crowd after William Tell’s finale and yelled, “Who wants this NEXT?” “Don’t you dare make eye contact with her,” I hissed at my mother. Another got the washboard, but my mother accepted a shaker so that she could participate in Mr. Bojangles. While perhaps my mother could be considered musical, again, I feel she did this in part because I was trying to fade into the geraniums.
Dan and Galla concluded by handing out American flags and leading the crowd in a rousing patriotic medley. “Because we all can agree on one thing--we’re lucky to be Americans!” Galla shouted. Oh that the election would have been held right there. Galla would be leading this country right now and Dan would be in her cabinet.
(Aside: God, please forgive me for wanting to pour the demure Starbucks beverage the OBNOXIOUS man is drinking all over his sleek technology. Bless his Ray-Ban Sunglasses. Bless his pinstriped pants. Bless the redeeming aspects of his personality that are not at all evident at this moment. Forgive me for failing to see any redeeming features in personality at this moment. Amen.)
I related tale of this social event to Peter who responded, “Cool! Well, it sounds like it was really fun!” without a hint of irony in his voice. If I leave him for any amount of time, he reverts to his happy, altruistic self. Without my grumpiness he achieves this zen state of optimism. The house is a mess and he sustains his life by eating muffin mix he finds in the back of the cabinet, but his outlook on the world is inspiring.
Though, he is of Polish heritage. Maybe he does just like polka.
I just it goes to show. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend on your eyebrows. You can’t run from your roots.
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