In Just 9 Days, So Much Can Change

It's been a while since I had a really introspective day. I used to have these a lot. Then I got married, and three years later we were joined by the youth. Introspective minutes are more the order of the day now. But I had a life-changing experience Sunday. And yes, it involved church. But to quote the illustrious Q And Not U, "Something beautiful happened in the church house, but it didn't have to do with God." Actually, this wasn't beautiful, either. I had a confrontation with a parishioner.

We were in Tha Jerz this weekend. At church by the in-laws' house, there's a crying room. We like to use that so the youth can express himself freely whilst the rest of the church enjoys its collective silence. About halfway through Mass, a woman entered said crying room alone. We'd seen her there before; she coughed, hacked, and wheezed a lot. Sneezed, too. No kids. It is a mystery to us why she's in there. I was chided by Mrs. Original last time for not speaking up about her presence, so I decided to impose my philosophical will. She appeared ill again for the duration of our stay in the crying room, and there was another baby in the room who couldn't have been more than 8 weeks old. I kept it real and didn't use profanity or any insults. I simply told her that I felt she should sit elsewhere (MANY empty seats in the main church) and not in a confined space with infants present.

I tried to apologize to her in the parking lot afterwards and she lit me up. I half expected her to tell me she had emphysema or something like that (which would have warranted an apology from me), but instead, her defense consisted of statements like "Babies have more germs than adults!" and "Do you wash your hands every time you go to the bathroom?" Incidentally, the answer to that question is an emphatic YES for me. I wash my hands about 200 times per day. I wash my hands so frequently that they look like bloody stumps all winter long. She stormed off to her car and we went to ours. Or I should say I walked to the car, because at this point I had been abandoned by all family members. The crowd that had gathered for the shouting dissipated, and for me, that was the end of it. Mrs. Original, however, is refusing to let this die. It's driving me crazy. This woman should not have been in there acting ill. I'm the parent of an infant in a world where some idiot from Georgia with TB can take an intercontinental plane trip. Gotta act.