Monday, May 10, 2010

Out Of The Mouth Of Ains: The Best Confession EVER

I debated about whether or not to post this one; I fully expect that someday Ainsley will read all the things I've written about her, and this one has the potential to mortify her.



But it's so darn funny I can't help myself.



In preparation for her first communion Saturday, Ainsley and her classmates spent pretty much the whole day Friday in prayer, reflection, and confession. They called it Jesus Day and they made shirts for it. Kind of like when I was at Centre and all the really good fraternity parties had t-shirts.

She came back from Jesus Day full of stories about all the stuff they had done and everything they had talked about except that she was not about to tell me anything about confession. She has been indoctrinated well; we'll never know what dark deeds get discussed in the confessional. Though I am dying to know. (I should really confess to being nosy.)

Later that night we had a toilet overflow. Chaos ensued. I don't know why a clogged crapper sends my little family into such an uproar but it does. I hate messes, Jason hates playing the role of the world's most underpaid plumber, and Ainsley hates that something like 99.9% of the time it happens at her hands.

Yes, friends. Ainsley is a world-class toilet clogger.

I won't go into details on my theory of why this happens to her on a weekly basis, except to say I think it's a tragic combination of toilet-paper obsession and biologic predisposition.

We weren't happy when this happened, and after the plunger had been wrought we let her know we weren't very happy that we spent part of our Friday night taking care of such business. Our 1980s low-flow plumbing is only partly responsible (and if it were only her plumbing responsible it wouldn't be so bad, either, but the toilet paper...my God, the toilet paper.)

"I know," she sighed. "I'm sorry. If I had done this yesterday, I would have confessed to it today."

Ha!

Imagine yourself as that priest. A little seven-year-old girl comes in and very seriously, very solemnly confesses to you the worst sin she's committed all week...clogging the toilet.

Could you keep a straight face? Could you? Because I don't think I could.

We explained to her that clogging the toilet isn't, technically speaking, a sin. So hopefully this won't come up someday as she's rattling off her list of transgressions to a concerned priest.

Though she'll probably have to confess it to the Roto Rooter man someday.

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