Uncomfortable wooden seats, gaudy fabric covering everything and an ambivalent man on a cross judging you. Everyone is in their conservative, mostly plain church clothes.

Borrring!

Some people are crying, some people are legitimately paying attention to the sermon. Some are chatting in loud whispers, and then there are those that are staring at the whisperers with murder in their eyes. Yes! The church experience in today’s America. Has it really changed that much over the centuries? I sometimes wonder that while I sit here counting the lights, with an ear always on the lookout for an accidental slip of an F-Bomb. Is there anything better than grandma aged ladies dropping an “oh fuck”, I think not.

In my better moments I sometimes think I can smell burning wood and hear an angry crowd chanting, BURN HIM, BURN THE SINNER! Oh Shit! Are they coming for me? I cry "Stay back fiends, I have the anathema device!" Then I remember they don’t burn the wicked in this civilized age. Instead they stare at you with blood lust in their eyes. All the while the midget porn they have on pause at home has suddenly closed, and now they will never know how the plumber escapes the villainess's clutches.

I know you are reading this thinking wait a minute, what group do you fall in? I have often pondered that question while the pastor is on his soap box. I don’t cry in church, at least on the outside. I do occasionally have murder in my eyes, but it’s usually directed at the really young when they are screaming. I don’t want you to think I am some kind of a monster. I am just upset that I can’t scream and squirm like those little bastards. What category does a banned from Texas millennial aged male fall into? That's easy, my girlfriend dragged me here this morning.

Am I a hostage? I can see you scratching your head with a truly confused look in your eyes, with the question forming on the tip of your tongue and your brain still refusing to believe that my girlfriend, who is five foot four and roughly one third my weight can make me do anything I don’t want to do.

The answer to that is simple, she is an assassin between kills. I have seen her torture answers out of the type of guys Bruce Willis’s characters are based on and giggle when they beg for mercy. These words are recorded within these hallowed pages so therefore they are beyond refutation.

Instead, I like to think I am a unique snowflake drifting gently on the winds of the storm that is life…… just like everyone else.

If I have to be grouped, then I like to think of myself as a hostage, but when I say hostage instantly a picture of Chuck Norris fast roping from a helicopter with an Uzi in each hand, a grenade in his mouth and the rope clenched between the oh so sculpted cheeks of his buttocks. Yes, that works for me. There is no Chuck Norris though, there is just me on an angry wooden bench surrounded by my peeps.

The pastor is going in for the quick kill today all hell and abomination, no flowers, and puppies for you. Go to hell, go straight to hell, do not pass go, no one hundred goats for you.

I love watching this man lose his ever loving mind! It's great he is screaming about the sinners suffering in hell. He is stomping out the devil beneath the stage. Bellowing louder than the walls can contain. If there is an unsaved soul within a mile of this place he will be saved by the strength in this man’s words. He glances down to the front of the congregation near the aisle, and he suddenly stops mid-sentence “The devil has you by the.” He turns beet red, and wipes the sweat from his head, then immediately launches back into damning the sinners, if somewhat less enthusiastic.

What the hell was that? Has the dark lord snuck in? Did he forget his sermon? No! It was the slut in the front row. Who comes to church with their blouse unbuttoned down to her navel? I hope her parents are proud. You can definitely tell she wasn’t raised right, I bet she was out late last night making out with, of all things other beautiful girls her age. I wonder what was going through her mind when she interrupted a most excellent rant.

Whatever it was, I don't care. God bless her and all the others like her and I do mean everyone.