June 22, 2006
Catholic Guilt Is Not a Myth
You know all the stereotypes about Catholic Guilt? I am sure they all got their start in my friend, PJ. PJ makes the Pope proud. She's on his Christmas card list.
Every once in a while, I'll get a phone call from PJ, apologizing for something that, a) she never did; or b) I have absolutely no recollection of. In either case, she is often begging my forgiveness as I stare off into space and try to conjure up what in God's name she could possibly be talking about.
I received such a call this afternoon.
PJ's all, "I was walking down the hall, and all of a sudden, I saw your face in front of me, with your stern eyebrows and pursed lips, and I realized that you were mad at me!"
And I'm thinking, Oh, Lord, what did she imagine doing now?
As she continued to babble, it slowly became clear to me what she was talking about.
On our vacation, PJ, Egrau and I stopped at Kopp's in Milwaukee for the best damn frozen custard on the planet. And yes, I have tasted all the other frozen custard on the planet. I get around.
While eating, we noticed a young lady in line with such severe VPL, I thought she might be one of those circus freaks who was a twin that didn't really separate, so they have some weird, superfluous body part -- namely, an extra set of buttocks.
Egrau and I laughed, and PJ asked what VPL is, so we told her -- Visible Panty Lines.
"It's why I always wear a thong with jeans," I explained.
"But why wouldn't you just wear looser jeans?"
And this was the ghost in the form of Wenchie's pursed face that was haunting PJ. See, she meant the you as in y'all everybody in general. Whereas I thought she meant you as in you tight-jeans-wearin' whore Wenchie.
So I gave her a dirty look. And then promptly forgot about it because I am a tight-jeans-wearin' whore, so why quibble about it?
But no, Patti's guilt lay dormant and festered for twenty-four hours and then manifested itself in an apparition of my pursed face. And she did use the word pursed a lot.
She goes, "Please forgive me and make your face go away!"
Uh-huh. So now she has a whooooooooole new issue to feel guilty about. I'm expecting another phone call this evening.
Comments
*Giggle* I'm Episcopalian. All of the pageantry, none of the guilt.
Missed your posts.
Posted by: Homidus Celticus Corax at June 22, 2006 11:32 PM
Been there, done that. Being raised Catholic is hell. The only people who have it worse are Jewish. Which reminds me of an anecdote and a joke:
Matthew Broderick (the actor) is doing an interview to promote The Producers, and I didn't realize that his father was an actor, too, so they talk about that. Apparently, one of his parents was Catholic and the other was Jewish. Broderick said, I didn't know which side to feel more guilty about."
The joke is "Why do Catholics hate the Jews so much?" "Because the Jews do guilt better."
Which I think should answer Broderick's concerns.
-L.
Posted by: Lori at June 23, 2006 01:23 PM
If you want to talk about guilt, how about being a Catholic that converts to Lutheranism? Oy...
Posted by: Marty at June 23, 2006 04:06 PM