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Previously on The Cultural Hall…

I think my lack of tact has just killed half the audience.

I hand the microphone back to the Sunday School teacher and sheepishly sit back down. Sweet 16’s great-grandfather is glaring at me, and all I want to do is steal someone’s scooter and flee.

And now, the conclusion…

Oh, if only I had taken that scooter. I could imagine myself zipping down the church hallway, an angry mob of cane waving Sunday School seniors behind me, ward members diving out of my way-

Hold on, I’m on a scooter.

I meant to say, the ward members are casually stepping out of my way.

But we can’t all live in a Michael Bay film…

It turns out my lyrical tragedy in Sunday School (sorry Sweet 16) didn’t seem to do anything other than portray me as a young and single bumbling idiot. And apparently ‘bumbling idiots’ are popular this year because everyone between Sunday School and Sacrament Meeting had a single woman in mind that I absolutely had to meet. Even the ward’s token ‘crazy lady’ had someone she wanted me to meet. Between you and I, pretty sure she was referring to her cats.

Some time has passed since that day and there have been some difficulties in trying to ‘fit in’ as a young single guy in a funeral ward.

For example, no matter what I do their canes are always bigger than mine.

Also it’s dang near impossible to stay awake in Sacrament meeting. Put yourself in a quiet room (of course no children crying), listen to a softly spoken speaker stray from their topic and wander through memory, and then throw in a lullaby of oxygen tanks hushing the air around you-

Yeah, nap time.

Then there’s my home teachers.

You know the two old men (Waldorf and Statler) that sit in the theater balcony above the Muppets and do nothing but crack jokes at everything? Now imagine those same two old men, in the flesh, sharing a serious gospel message with you as home teachers:

“…and so that’s the story of the creation.”

 “I wonder if God created life on other planets?”

“Who cares? You don’t even have a life on this one.”

(Both laugh hysterically)

The truth is, being a single guy in a funeral ward isn’t such a bad deal. I could be stuck going to a Mid-Singles Ward where I would fall prey to every glance, smile, and flirtations remark you could think of as all the women in the ward hound me for a ring.

Here in the funeral ward, I’m seen as a human being instead of a piece of meat. For example, the older sisters in the ward light up whenever they see me. What an ego boost that is. Every time I walk into Sunday School they look at me like a woman would Matthew Mcconaughey, but with a shirt on.

Come to think of it they look at me that way all the time. When I’m at church, in a grocery store, working out on my balcony, changing the light bulbs in their apartments-

Wait a minute. There sure are a lot of widows in my ward. You don’t think I’m in the Senior Singles ward? Nah, that’s silly. They would have told me by now. Right?

I wonder if light bulb sales are up in my area?

John

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