Happy Easter to You

Well....things just seem to get weirder and weirder. I got home last night to an empty house. My parents decided to go to Gatlinburg for a few days after Easter, leaving me in Jackson for a night by myself. Its totally fine with me. I like being by myself and doing whatever the heck I want, which is exactly what I did.

I piddled around the house, ate dinner, then went to workout while I watched Dancing with the Stars. When I got home, I decided to let my deer-eating dog, Chloe, in the house since she had been all alone all weekend. Apparently she hadn't had any water all day and was dying of thirst because when she came in, she didn't do her usual dance around the living room like a crazy woman. She just walked to the kitchen and stood by the sink until I filled up a metal pot with some water. She then proceeded to drink not one, but two pots of water in a matter of minutes. Fully satisfied, she sat down beside my recliner and let me pet her while Butler gave Duke a run for their money.

At half time, I got on the computer to check my email and buy a book from Amazon when I heard a weird coughing/hacking noise in the den

. Chloe had thrown up all the water she had just drank and a gooey pile of white lumpiness sat on top.

Gross.

I cleaned it up and texted my sister.

"Chloe just threw up," I said. "And there's a lump of white stuff on top."

"That lump is leftover Bambi," she said.

Disgusting.

But I'm still laughing.

Of all the family get-togethers, Easter is usually the most uneventful. Since my sister moved to Johnson City, my family has made a habit out of traveling to see her play softball for the weekend then spending the holiday with My mom's sister's family in Knoxville. The first year the tradition started, I stayed in Columbia because me and my friends were traveling to New Orleans the next day. Last year, my spring break was spent in Haiti, but Easter fell on a different weekend and I was able to make the treck Knoxville with the fam. Unfortunately, the weather was anything but springy and Katie's games got rained out and they had to play on Easter so I didn't even get to see her. The church service must have been uneventful because all I remember from the day is going out to eat at Calhoun's and listening to Uncle Bill's funny stories about life in a 1960's Southern Baptist church.

"The Pastor would do an alter call every service," he said. "And we'd sing all 6 verses of 'Just as I am' over and over until someone walked down the isle.

"And ya know what?" he continued. "That person was usually me because I knew Nana had a roast in the oven!"

I'm sad to say that Uncle Bill died last summer so he wasn't with us on Easter. Fortunately, this year's Easter Service made up for the missing humor that Uncle would have normally provided.

First of all, the white haired preacher opened up the service with the same story about talking to a woman at the grocery store that he told last year....and the year before that and on Christmas Eve.

"I may have told you this story before," he said. "But one day I went to the grocery store and I was talking to the cashier as she checked out my groceries.

'What do you do for a living?' she asked me. And then I said to her, 'I'm a pastor. I've got a church up here on Kingston Pike and we're expecting about 5,000 people this Easter.'

'Well,' she said. 'You better not mess that one up!'"

A low rumble rolled through the audience, but no one laughed too much. I wonder if he made that story up so he would have a way to break the ice. My Uncle Eric wonders how many times he goes to the grocery store and talks to that clerk.

One thing I hate about church sometimes is how serious everyone is. I mean, I get it, we're in the house of God and I understand we need to honor and revere him as our Father. But if you truly embrace what Easter is all about--the fact that Christ rose from the dead, conquering death, and rescuing us from our sins--then don't you think people should look a little happier than they do?

At the end of the service, everyone stood while the choir sang the Hallelujah chorus. The church was filled with stiff faced mannequins who refused to crack a smile or hug a loved one, let alone sing and dance and "praise the Lord!"

Everyone, that is, except one little boy sitting a few rows up and to my left. He was busy booty dancing to the slow melody of the Hallelujah chorus and me and my cousins couldn't keep a straight face. He had his hand on his hip and rolled his body up and down like a music video girl on BET.

"What his he doing?" I whispered to my sister. "That is so funny!"

The four of us continued laughing until the boy's grandmother grabbed him and held him close to her side. I don't know why she was worried. He was probably just filled with the spirit!

I walked out of church laughing, believing that that was one of the funniest things I've seen in a while until my Aunt Denise said, "Well, didn't you see the lady with with the binoculars?"

"Binoculars?" I asked as we climbed into the car.

"Yea!" she said. "Some old lady couldn't see the screen during the worship time so she had these big black binoculars held up to her face."

Oh man.......if only I had

seen it. Then I'd have a lot more to say about that one. Happy Easter everyone.

By the way.....don't google image "dog throw up"