One strike and you’re a crisp!

When she asks me I’m not ready, but I never seem to be ready for anything in these ever more complex days. My pschobabble pal would tell me that I over analyse these things, which is probably the very sad truth of the matter. So many thoughts, strategies and questions run through my own mind that I’m usually paralyzed into temporary silence.
“Oh look mom! There’s those guys again.”
“Oh yes.”
“The guys that were hitting on those girls in the sports car last week.”
“I think it was the other way around actually.”
“Really.”
“Yes, remember the girls pulled the car into the curb when they saw the guys.”
“Nearly ran us over!”
“Hmm. Nearly ran them over more like.”
“Why would anyone want to run those guys down?”
“I think they were just trying to frighten them.”
“Why would they want to frighten the guys?”
“Er…..some people…..dislike Mormons.”
“What’s a Mormon.”
“Someone who belongs to a particular religion, their the disci...er.....people of "Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints".”
“What’s their religion about?”
“Well they’re the ones that come knocking on the door to tell us about their religion. It’s part of their religion to go and tell other people.”
“What do they tell?”
“Mainly that if you don’t join their club……you won’t……go to heaven when………if the end of the world comes along.”
“Do we wanna join their club and go to heaven?”
“That’s for you do decide.”
“How many Mormons are there?”
“I have no idea, we could look it up when we get home. I’d guess that they’re less that one percent of the world population.”
“So 99% of people aren’t gonna go to heaven?”
“That would be the logical conclusion. But logic and religion often don’t fit very well together.”
“Mommee?”
“Yes dear?”
“What would happen if you hit a teacher?”
“Hit a teacher?” Where did that come from? I feel beads of sweat sweep my brow which perfectly match my sticky palms that clutch the steering wheel.
“Yeah, at your old school, when you were little, like me, what would have happened?”
“My school! Nothing would have happened, I mean, that would never have happened, it’s completely inconceivable that anyone would ever hit a Sister, I mean a nun.”

I have never physically touched a nun in my entire life, none of us did. They didn’t touch us either, unless you count a whop with a ruler, which I don’t, count that is to say. We lived in a no touch zone for years. I see my white knuckles and try to maintain a steady speed in a 25 mph residential area.

“But what would happen if someone ever did?” I dither. The floor would open up to let the flames engulf you, swallow you up and all that would be left would be a little puff of black smoke where your blackened soul was once. I give her the logical secular answer, “well, you’d be expelled…..instantaneously.” I wait for what might come next, hover in "limbo." “It’s o.k. mum, that’s all I wanted to know.”
“Um….no other questions?”
“Nope.”

My heart starts beating again and I begin to breathe. She probably doesn’t need to know about everlasting hell and damnation just yet, if ever. I wonder why they say once a Catholic always a Catholic? It’s all perfectly logical!

For a more practical look at some of the hic-cups for parents with autistic children, you can see me over "here" at "Trusera" with "A Combined Approach."