Substitute Sunday

Sunday was substitute day at The Methodist.

Pastor Patty writes Romance novels in her spare time. They usually feature a young slave woman who hears God's call to preach and defies the slave-masters to preach freedom to her fellow slaves, or a young Muslim woman, who hears Allah's call to preach, and defies the Taliban to preach equality to her fellow Muslims, or a young immigrant woman, who hears God's call to preach, and defies the authorities to preach voting to her fellow immigrants, or... you get the picture. Pastor Patty is big on defying authorities.

Agents and publishers have a difficult time believing that romance and religion can go together, though, so Pastor Patty's heroines languish in the bottom drawer of her file cabinet. Until Superagent Phyllis Ethridge was passing by Pastor Patty's little high table at The Mills of The Gods Coffee House, where she goes because she doesn't like the smell at her husband's coffee house, "Good To The Last Slop," in Winkleblue, and brushed against the stack of papers that comprise "The Preacher Wore Scarlet," and knocked them over, and with great embarrassment, picked them up off the floor, and being the sort of person who can't even pick up a newspaper off the floor without reading it, she became intrigued by The Rev. Rosa Barber, and... well, Pastor Patty had a manuscript deadline on Monday and had to write about a preacher on Sunday morning instead of being one.

Pastor Patty was going to call on The Rev. Dr. Randall Nathan, (Retard), to preach, but Cindy Lou Hoover had already lined up Claire, Randall's wife, to substitute for her in Kinderkirk, so she could go to a BeautiControl conference in Dallas for the weekend, and Randall wasn't about to pass up a chance to get points in the HOTY [Husband Of The Year] competition, or a chance to play with 2 and 3 year olds, just to preach to a bunch of adults who don't know the difference betweeen eschatology and scatology.

Prof. Ben "Seymour" Bottoms, who sometimes fills the pulpit, was also out of town, since it is spring break at Cratchit State U, "on a tour of the Confederacy," as his wife, Kate Bates, likes to put it, since Prof. Bottoms seeks out warmth in every season but summer.

So Pastor Patty, or The Rev. Dr. Patricia Niebuhr, as Randall Nathan calls her, had to call on Pastor Natalie, who is living with her parents in Chronicle while she is "between calls" with the Presbyterians. There is a reason Pastor Natalie is between calls.

The congregation was especially small at The Methodist Sunday. When Pastor Patty called Pastor Natalie on Tuesday to thank her for "filling the pulpit," which Pastor Natalie does exceptionally well, Pastor Natalie noted the paucity of parishoners in the pews and said, "You must not have told them I was coming." "No, I didn't," said Pastor Patty, "but they found out anyway."