#634 Jeremiad

Here’s my tale of woe. I don’t go to church because of my nose.
I know that seems like a weird reason, but when has reason had anything to do with church.
I don’t go because I can’t stand the smell. Oh, empty churches are moderately tolerable. Quite a few times I’ve gone into them to vote.
That’s one of the things I miss most about the new Washington vote entirely by mail experience. I don’t get to go into empty churches.
Empty churches have the musty smell you get from parishioners exuding the sweat of damnation and then having it dry out. And they have the smell that isn’t there, unlike most public places, where someone at one time or another has—there’s no easy way to say it—passed gas.
Passing gas leaves a residual “human” smell. Churches never seem to have it.
Although you would figure the great creator, since he fashioned all manner of human orifices and expulsions, would find the flatulence experience not particular blasphemous.
No more, I would say, than the matronly women that slather on the perfume before their visits to the house of the Lord. That’s another thing I’m not really sure of. Why they think God would be the least bit impressed with the latest eau-de-whatever.
I’m sure not.
I, for one, think there ought to be “perfume free” sections in restaurants. The whiff of some of these lady’s perfumes totally puts my nose and taste buds out of whack and destroys my dining experience.
And the cloud these women leave behind seems to linger for hours. A lady came into the station the other day and it about bowled me over. When she left, this floral miasma seemed to cling to every crack and cranny in the furniture.
The lady, I’m sure, hadn’t a clue. People adjust to things and, unless someone tells them, have no idea when they’re pouring it on too thick.
But when I walk into a church, it’s there like a poisonous fog.
To paraphrase a great and troubled songwriter, smells like middle-age spirit.
America, ya gotta love it