Turning in My Good Girl Badge

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Working at a church, there are a few things I expect to hear on a daily basis.

  • A sincere version of "how are you doing?"
  • "The baptismal is filling itself again. That thing is possessed."
  • "The printer won't cooperate. That thing is possessed."
  • "I [am / will be] praying for you."
  • "Grawr! Enough with the Comic Sans already!"

I was not at all prepared, however, for what came out of my pastor's mouth yesterday.

He walked into my office to hand me a birth announcement. I publish the weekly church bulletin, and we always include a note about any new babies who have been born to those in the congregation. My office roomie, meanwhile, had received the original phone call from the first-time grandfather, also a church member. Jokingly, she began quizzing the pastor for details to see who had better "intel."

"How much does she weigh?" my roomie asked. The pastor quickly rattled off the correct answer.

"What's her middle name? Was she early or late? Was she delivered normally?" My pastor fumbled a bit, but he did nail every answer.

After a few more rounds, though, he whipped out a mischievous look and crumpled up the candy wrapper that was in his hand. He declared, "What kind of a quiz is this, anyway?" and chucked the wrapper playfully at my office roomie. She was clearly stunned, as my pastor is usually more serious during the week, devoting much of his time to studying.

We all three burst out into laughter, which caused yet another coworker to stumble into the scene. At this point, the pastor was on the way out the door. He paused, however, upon seeing my collage of pictures on the wall.

"Whoa, Rach," he said. "What's with all the boys on the wall? Any of those a 'special boy'?"

My face immediately turned fourteen shades of red.

"Uhh, well, no. They're . . . uh . . . my friends from --"

My coworker interrupted. "That's Rachel's harem."

Fourteen more shades of red.

Surprisingly, my pastor laughed uproariously. "Oh wow. So how does that work, Rachel. Do you rotate through them somehow? A little 'flavor of the day' thing going on?"

From red to purple. And then I died. And so did everyone else, but they were dying from laughter instead of embarrassment. It was easily the highlight of everyone's day, and I have yet to hear the end of it.

Now if any other person on the planet had made that comment, I would've been only a skosh embarrassed. But the fact that my own pastor, the very man who preaches godly and biblical virtues from the pulpit every week, thinks I'm a whore? Or possibly a pimp? Or maybe both? That will officially scar me for the rest of my life.