When I go to mass on Sunday's, it is usually at 11am, when the mass is said in Italian. I suppose I could go to the English mass, but I just don't want to wake up early on a Sunday.
Sue me.
Going to the Italian mass means that I am surrounded by older Italian people dressed in dark suits and hair coiffed to the max. The men coiff their hair too. It's scary cute.
It's very random that a youngster such as myself is there. I'm definitely not attending to pick up hot Italian dudes, that's for sure. There are quite a few kiddies, but they are most likely forced to go with their grandparents since their own parents don't go. Yes, I tend to generalize.
As I was sitting and daydreaming listening to the homily, I noticed that I started to smell bubble gum coming from down below. I didn't really think anything of it. I just figured that maybe some kid decided that he needed to chew some Hubba Bubba before taking the body of Christ.
The priest motioned for us to stand, and when I did, my left foot felt like it was sticking to the floor. And when I lifted it up, I could feel the gum grasping onto the sole of my shoe for dear life, as the floor was doing the same to the gum.
Ah-men, shit.
I must've stepped on some gum on the way in to the church. I can't remember the last time I had gum stuck on the bottom of my shoe. I'm pretty sure it was in the pre-pubescent stage of my life. I really can't picture anyone past the age of 15 being stupid enough to get gum stuck on their shoe.
For some strange reason, the song "I am stuck on band aid brand, cuz band aids stuck on me!" comes into my head and fails to be replaced by the hymns sung during mass. Sorry, Jesus.
I start scraping my shoe on the ground, quietly and discreetly, in the hopes of removing the gum wad and keeping it from taking up permanent residence on my sole. Sliding my foot back and forth on the floor wasn't really doing as good of a job as I'd hoped. So, as discreetly as possible, I started to scrape my shoe against the kneeler of the pew in front of me. It was working! Whoop!
I'm working a little harder now at removing the gum wad, because seriously, I'm not a fan of wads under my feet. Chunks are coming out and sticking to the floor and the pew in front of me. How big was this wad?!
I casually look over to my left as I'm working away and notice a little old Italian lady look at me, then at the wad of gum that is now tainting the holy kneeler. She doesn't look happy.
I kind of half shrug and continue to scrape my foot while looking in the general direction of where the priest is, so that little old lady will think that at least I am paying attention. But really I wasn't. I should probably work on that. The paying attention part, I mean.
So the gum was successfully removed but was now stuck on the pew in front of where I was sitting. At least it will give some kid who was dragged there something to do/play with/stare at while he or she is pretending to pay attention during mass.
So, really, everybody wins.
7 hours ago
