The Mormon Diaries, Chapter 3: Mormon Night Football
I didn’t mean to make the Mormons run away.
I didn’t mean to ruin their Family Home Evening night, either. But they were getting preachy, boring, and I had wine.
Family Home Evening—or FHE as the cool Mormons call it for short—is their version of Happy Hour. Every Monday night while us non-believers watch Monday Night Football or laugh-tracked CBS sitcoms, they gather. They swarm bowling alleys, campgrounds, and Red Lobsters across the globe.
The neighbors hyped FHE up all week: “attractive” girls, a free banquet dinner, “surprise” entertainment. I did not particularly want to go. But it was a Monday night. In Utah. And I wanted to be affable. Restore some goodwill after the weekend’s Never Have I Ever debacle.
I knew it wouldn’t be like my business school Happy Hours. I knew it wouldn’t be my old roommate’s sort of “surprise” (read: all-you-can-eat buffet and lap-dance at a certain Manhattan strip club). I’m not exactly sure what I expected at Family Home Evening, but this was not it:
Twelve aww shucks, holiday-sweatered Mormons in a dingy one bedroom apartment. They shared Hawaiian punch and inside jokes about Sunday’s service. Jacob saw the new Muppets movie over the weekend. It was OK, he demurred. No Smurfs though.
Every Family Home Evening group has two organizers. A girl and a boy dubbed the Mom and Dad. It is their “calling” to keep the family together and share Scripture.
The Dad of this ill-begotten family was Adam. Adam was a pudgy, gap-toothed 29-year-old who works at a video game store. The Mom was a pale and pasty girl in frumpy clothes your grandmother would veto. I don’t remember her name.
Adam asked the group to pipe down. He read an opening prayer from Scripture. I’m told it was a lovely passage. I wouldn’t know. I excused myself to the town’s lone liquor store and returned with a bottle of wine.
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Warning: Family Home Evening results may vary.
Yes, dinner was free. Although of dubious spirituality (P.F. Chang’s). There were three girls. None of them “attractive”.
“And for tonight’s mystery entertainment…” Adam paused for dramatic effect. Someone started a drum roll on the kitchen counter. Devin crossed his fingers. He narrowly lost out in the scavenger hunt last month. He wanted another shot.
“Monopoly!!!”
The group cheered. “I call the top-hat piece,” one of them chimed in.
I did not pass Go. I did not collect $200. I cursed loudly, helped myself to the P.F. Chang’s, and turned on one of the Pirates of the Caribbean’s.
I went back for seconds. Everything was gone. The Mormons. The Monopoly board. Even the Sweet & Sour chicken. Only the half-drunk bottle of wine remained. Oh.
Someone knocked on the door. I splashed the rest of the wine in my cup.
“It’s open.”
It was Russell. Of course it was Russell. Russell lived down the hall. He worked the night shift at Smith’s groceries. His hobbies included four-hour naps, Captain Crunch Berry cereal, and saying “man”… a lot. Yet mysteriously, he did not smoke weed. I’ve imagined Russell lives life like a 1930s Charlie Chaplin movie. Everything is in black and white. Everything breaks. Nothing runs on time.
“Hey man. Sorry I’m late … Where is everyone?”
“Yeah, I dunno.” I said truthfully. “The Monday night game’s about to come on though.”
“Oh, sweet man! I brought Captain Crunch.”
You’re a dick.
You’re not a dick.
Well, I enjoyed every sip of that.
You can go to hell, no Mormons there.
Chuckle. That took two sips to get.
Oh, wait. *I* have a Mormon story too.
During the off-time weekend of a business trip I found myself
in Salt Lake City, so, primed on punch (can’t remember if I had any weed) I took a tour of the Mormon temple. The only part I remember all these many decades later is the part where the tour guide dropped a pin while standing at the other side of their cavernous chapel. And you could hear every nuance. Can you hear me now?
I must have been naive back then. NO, I *WAS* naive back then in my twenties. At the end of the tour they had a questionaire to find out, wink, wink, what you thought of the tour. The questionaire also asked for your phone number.
Does Mormon equal naive? If so, I hadn’t had the Mormon knocked out of me yet.
Are you kidding me!! I actually gave my real phone number. And you just know what popped out of the phone receiver a week later when I cheerfully (cheerfully – is that Mormon also?) answered, “Hello”.
Naive, cheerful and UNFRIGGIN UNassertive. How hard was it for me to say, “NO!”. Or even a cheerful, “No, thank you”. Gad, yep I must have been part Mormon back then and thus ripe for my Seven Lessons.
That is right, with “Hello” out jumps through the phone receiver clean, white shirted, smiling, cheerful Mormon young adults. And your Seven Lessons.
“Seven Lessons?”, you ask. Yep, they come over to your house/apartment SEVEN times to discuss the reading lesson you did that week.
Ok, seven is survivable, but the abyss nearly opened up under my feet. After the Seven they invited me to visit their local, not far enough away, neighborhood temple. “No!”, “NO!”, “NOOOOO!!!”.
Any normal person whould say “no”. Am I right? Did I say, “no”?
No.
Can’t believe that is me I am remembering about all those decades ago. I know it was though.
Well, the light was shining on me, or some seagull, for there is a happy ending.
I was dressed up (white shirt I bet and too much cologne) waiting for my ride to the temple to arrive and…and…no one showed up. Heavens be praised. Actually they arrived an hour late. There had been a screw up at the temple apparently and the people *my* mormans had handed me off to forgot me.
Well, my roommate answered the door when they finally did arrive. I clearly remember this. My roommate was shirtless and his shock of red hair was not confined to the top of his head. He stood there at the door towering over them like a Scottish heathen naked warrior in a brooding silence as they profusely apologized for having forgotten me. (They were too naive to make something up, like, “our car broke down”. Nope, they forgot me.)
They forgot me. I didn’t know this set of mormons and so I found it very easy to act offended. I know for certain I was actually overjoyed. Offended I could do. Saying “no”, guess that was hard way back then, but offended was easy because it was appropriate and expected. Their demeanor said I was expected to be offended, and so I was. THANK GOD. They departed the front walk with their tails between their legs under the guarded stare of my carrot mopped roommate.
Too bad your story is fake- Mormons don’t give tours of the temple. Faulted from the beginning….
To start Ryan Matthews plays for the Chargers and you claimed it was a Falcons Jags game. You’re probably on the cusp of middle class leaning towards lower middle class. Mormons typically have their function within their church (as it is well accommodated) and a majority of the mormon community is quite affluent. The reason their tends to be lower class mormons is so the parents of those children can have a better chance of pulling them out of poverty, if it means placing a restraint on there personal urges in public and the mormon clique than more power to them. Personally I despise mormonism, but I despise you more for mocking a religion you don’t understand and watching a sport you most likely are not cut out for. Have a good one.
What’s underneath the magic Mormon underwear? – Exposed http://www.squidoo.com/mormon-church