Jesus Pretzels & the Holy Water Cooler

665--the neighbor of the beast.

I watched, admitting my own patheticness, one of the multitude of terrible shows on one of the multitude of terrible Discovery channels about a license plate in England that contained three consecutive 6’s as a part of its numeric sequence. It was not just 666, that might have been moderately interesting assuming it was not a vanity plate, but no, it was like WP2A7666Y9. This plate had been on a number of cars over the years owned by a number of different folks. The heavy voiced ridiculously ominous narrator described how each of the owners had suffered one devastating tragedy after another. Tragedies running the gambit from minor traffic accidents, to alcoholism and divorce confirming, for many I’m sure, the beast surely walks, or in this case commutes, among us.

The most compelling aspect of this program was that it was even actually produced, indicating that four monkey’s with an HD camera and a laptop can be television writers and producers. And why is this, because there are millions of other monkeys who will watch the monkey poop they produce.

Ahhhh pabulum.

I can only imagine the brainstorming session that led to this production, “Ooo, ooo, I know the significance and impact of demonic symbolism in contemporary society as demonstrated in extraordinarily ordinary circumstances.” I work at a university, I hear shit like that everyday just add the word diaspora somewhere, it doesn’t matter where, and you have a class, a dissertation or a discrimination lawsuit. I have no doubt the 40 something writer hired to script this dreck did indeed feel as though the devil was at work in her life, “You’re not selling your soul you are paying the mortgage,” she must have said over and over again, soothing herself with thoughts of getting back to work on her novel about a homosexual love affair during the opium war between a Chinese and Western merchant while the two 25 year old Discovery Channel producers said things to her like, “fuckin’ brilliant dude,” and hammed beers.

Conversely there is no dearth of idiotic programming about the presence of God found in Jesus shaped pretzels and Stations of the Cross water stained ceiling tiles. Who knew? The golden calf, a false prophet sure, but where does an image of the Virgin Mary clearly depicted in the condensation between panes of insulated glass at a sub shop in Jersey fall? Is this how a divine being chooses to present itself inciting the masses to reverence? The meek indeed.

Two things:
1. It’s good people have hope and look for miracles
2. People generally find what they wish to see

I am not Catholic but I have taken the holy sacrament on several occasions during a wedding or funeral when I was very hungry. Because the wafers are so tiny I had to go up 3 or 4 times since even if you ask nicely you can only eat one piece of Jesus at a time, but as a result I believe I have a certain impartial expertise. Why not just make Jesus pretzels, if you are eating his body why not a delicious pretzel over a dry tasteless communion wafer. Although it would be a much more complimentary palette, I am not suggesting the Catholic church go so far as to replace wine with beer, it would not be bloodish enough, it does however resemble other bodily fluids. I’m just sayin’. On the other hand cheese goes very well with wine perhaps a Jesus cheese would be a nice alternative called simply Cheesus.

But I only eat Jesus. Drinking his blood is a moot point for me as I do not drink wine so after three or four of these wafers I’m usually parched and need something to drink. This requires me to stumble over people to get out of the pew because the, otherwise very comfortable, footrest the Catholic Church graciously provides its flock leaves an uninitiated Protestant little room to maneuver.

I do not find the “bowl of water” method at the back of the church to be particularly sanitary way to get a drink, especially with everyone sticking their hands in it, but I suppose a water cooler would be distracting given the intermittent bubbling sounds it produces. I do think they could add a cup dispenser though as I had to donate a dollar so I could repurpose a votive, but I like do my part.

Sacrilege…sacrament I always get them confused…why are you running away?