;OK, so it finally happened.
;;Well not "it" exactly, as "it" happened many years ago and involved bloodstained mattresses in both incarnations of my sexual orientation. No, the "it" to which I presently refer is that I've realized the error of my ways, dear Lord; having felt the wrath of yet another illness involving antibiotics and their awkward debilitation — all shaky-handed, bed/toilet–ridden and suicide-threatening glee — I'm ready to surrender to the timeless path of the Lord, the Serenity Prayer, and grape juice instead of wine. So is Savannah, apparently. Just not now.
;;"I think I'm sick," she kicks from her Sidekick. "I have diarrhea, and I can't stop sweating."
;;"Me, too!" I kick back, albeit from a Samsung. "Get your God-fearing, Satan-dripping ass over here."
;;The plan is this. In lieu of our standard bar-hopping, name-dropping ways, we'll hop churches on Sunday morning and make peace-be-with-yous to the lovely whitehairs and those who bear children. We're both dying, after all, and we could use a little salvation. Plus, because of our admittedly unseemly shared digestive failure, we'll have the perfect excuse to politely wipe our brows, scratch our asses and creep out the door at our leisure, then creep into another back-row pew at another house of worship. It's perfect, really, unlike us; we're sweaty whores in church.
;;"You'll have to make sure to notice my Marc Jacobs dress and Betsey Johnson shoes," she drops names.
;;"Of course. And my Ben Sherman/ Banana Republic situation," I pick them back up. "We'll be like paper dolls in search of the perfect faith, the one that best matches our combined color wheel palette and general name-brandiness."
;;So I stuff my boyfriend's monogrammed Bible with notepaper, hoping to give the appearance of taking Scripture notes and not crafting semi-creative sacrilege, and we're out the door. Our first attempt — a quick walk up my street to the Church of Christ — fails on a couple of levels. First of all, Savannah's drinking a can of Tab that is causing her unsightly nausea, and second because we've already missed the 9 a.m. service. All that's left is a 10:30 a.m. Bible study, and that's way too personal. Anyway, judging by the man with the red tie kissing babies at the door (and just how badly that's going to clash with our red-carpet attire) we'll be better off queasily turning trou and looking into less severe options.
;;"Are you scared?" Savannah makes fun of my long-dormant church giggle.
;;"Yes."
;;A polite Sunday morning drive around the 'hood bears similar, if even less spectacular results from the Methodists and the Seventh-day Adventists (duh), and things are looking grim. How are we ever going to find the baby Jesus like this?
;;Fortunately, we pull up to the Park Lake Presbyterian Church just two minutes late for the 10:30 a.m. worship service, and we're crossing Colonial like a river of blood, scuttling about in search of a higher plane or at least a tongue to speak in.
;;Now blasphemy and disrespect are clearly not on our agenda here, as neither of us are that terribly crass, but the reality of the situation — being escorted to our seats by a kind-looking man in a suit while another man of the cloth reads out calls to prayer for those currently ill and not spending their Sunday mornings in designer clothes mocking religion altogether, or, well, the Missionaries to Madagascar (which is totally my new band) — does set in a little bit. As does our collective hot flash.
;;Within moments, we're standing and collectively singing out of key, and without a tune, the "Gloria Patri."
;;"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and the Holy Gho … " and I'm fitfully giggling, sweating and potentially spotting in my own shorts. "I have to shit," Savannah mutters, mopping a wet brow. This is, dear Lord, the most uncomfortable I've ever been. Well, not the most.
;;That would either be the passing of the peace (the aforementioned "peace be with you," delivered and reciprocated with and by a family who thinks we're funny and a couple of elderly folk who think nothing is funny) or the passing of the tithe tray. Savannah tries to make us seal an empty envelope to put in the offerings, but I stop her; I don't lie in church, bitches. I do at one point sit on a Bible accidentally, and it is in fact symbolically red, but I don't want to talk about it.
;;The minister then calls all of the children up for the perfunctory "welcoming of the children" that is clearly designed to make the matrons grab for the hankies balled up in their clutches.
;;"What is freedom?" he quizzes the dolled-up gaggle.
;;"It's a Wham! song," Savannah Ridgeleys.
;;"How does being a servant give us freedom?" he goes on, and I'm murmuring something under my breath about some twisted Jesus logic that I don't understand, possibly justifying slavery or war, but probably not. And I'm suddenly offended. Hell, I don't even know if Presbyterians like gay people; they do preach tolerance, but I'm pretty sure we're denominationally banned.
;;"Just let me know when you want to leave," I nudge Savannah's Marc Jacobsed thigh, and we hasten out the door.
;;Except we don't really hasten. It's jammed.
;;"Oh shit!" I whisper audibly. Shit finally happened.
;
