Manic Monday

And of course, as if there weren’t enough after-dinner obligations, there is the annual return to RES. Like the swallows to San Juan Capistrano only with no festival and no parade and no joyous bell ringing and no guarantee that anyone will be protected inside the walls of the church.

RES – known back in the day as Sunday School, and then CCD (whatever that stood for). I am not even clear what RES stands for. Religious Education for the Spawn of Hell?

RES is on Mondays. No longer offered on Sunday. Which is fine by me because 75 minutes of force fed religious education followed by an hour of Mass is a little too much squirming quietly in the hands of God in our dress-up clothes for my children.

There are two Monday options. There is 4 pm Monday class. Attended only by those children who have a parent at home coloring with them all day and maybe making meals for shut-ins.

And there is 6:45 pm. Which all of the apparent wards of the state attend.

So one night a week, I race from my office and break every traffic convention getting in the door by 6, to warm up a pre-assembled meal I prepared the night before under duress, choke down a plateful while discussing homework, and permission slips, and quiz grades, and what child visited which injustice to the other on the walk home, and then inspecting each of their clothes, hands and faces for cleanliness.

It is one thing to be the spawn of Hell. It is another thing altogether to look like the spawn of Hell.

And then we race to Our Lady of Condemnation with all the other inhabitants of Hell, to be guided through the drop off line by some volunteer parents, so some other enthusiastic volunteer parents can assist the children in getting safely from the car to the building.

Are we in Beirut?

And though the drop off line is a total pain and completely without value, what galls me the most is that it reminds me of what I am in store for with these overly zealous volunteer parents when I return in 75 minutes.

The Three Stooges episode that is The Pickup Line.