Of Courts and Churches

Well I've had the most interesting couple of weeks, that began in court and ended in church. If you're wondering what I was doing court, well, ask yourself why it is that most people wind up in court. Is it because they have broken the law?

Sometimes.

And ask yourself, when people have broken the law, what is it that they have done? Is it that they have broken into government offices in order to retrieve stolen, classified documents?

Sometimes.


As for the church part, my good friend Ryan, who is no stranger to the comments section of this very blog, took it apon himself to get married just a few days past. As children, we'd made a small wager on which one of us would get married first. It seems that I lost, but because he had not only vowed to get married first, but also to marry a barbarian warlord of infamy, I was not required to pay up as this latter stipulation did not come to pass.

As person after person took their place behind the microphone to share their personal humerous anecdotes about either bride or groom, one tale occured to me that, in my druken stupor, I decided to not relate at the time. In retrospect, that was a mistake, and I feel it best to share it now, lest another opportunity to do so not present itself.

Ryan and I have been co-dwellers at several locations throughout this fair city. The one I have in mind was a small house that managed to collect more thn it's fair share of snow upon it's driveway and sidewalk. The winter we resided there had been unusually long and cold, so we had to contend with even more snow than any previous tenant.

So it was during an afternoon of shovelling snow that we were suprised to uncover a vast block of ice in our driveway. We were even more suprised to discover that within this massive ice brick was none other than the prehistoric amphibian known as Icthyostega, one of the first vertebrates to crawl from the primordial oceans.

Naturally, we were very excited by this and quite eager to discover whether the thing had somehow survived it's ages of imprisonment. With great effort, we lugged the ice gaol inside and placed it in the bathtub to thaw. Hours passed slowly as we debated whether he had on our hands the greatest discovery in history or the world's coolest pet.

Finally, the ice thawed, and we carefully observed and poked the thing to see if it still lived. Much to our astonishment, the creature began to move! Quickly, we ran a warm bath for the beast, and tossed in plastic dinosaurs and Ryan's sea monkey's to make it feel more at home.

Then it was off to the kitchen to retrieve a celebratory bottle of wine, in honor of the greatest of all fortunes that had been bestowed apon us. The hours went by, and we periodically checked in on the ancient amphibian, except when "Jeopardy!" was on. that half hour was spent loudly declaring the question to every answer "What is Icthyostega". Much alcohol inspired amusement ensued.

But apon returning to the bathroom, Ryan was the first to realise something was wrong when he lfted our water/air breathing friend from the tub and kissed it, only to find it wasn't kissing him back. Alarmed, we repeated all our checks for signs of life. Only this time... there were none to be found. Icthyostega was dead.

Few have ever known the depair we felt that day. The wails that emanated from our household were of such volume that the neighbourhood banshee called the cops about the racket.

But even as the ancient amphibian died, a revelation was born to me. This thing had been kept alive in ice for 350 million years, only to die after a few hours in our care. God, or somebody, was trying to tell us something. He wanted us to be scientists.

I announced my intentions and Ryan declared that if I was going to be a scientist, then he would be a scientist, too.

But when the great day came to prove my devotion to empirical findings, I overslept. Ryan, true to his word, did not become a scientist because I had not become one.

So whatever became of us? Well, my story can be found right here, updated from time to time. As for Ryan, he confided to me at the wedding that he has mapped all the secret underground border crossings between Mexico and the United States, though he couldn't tell me the value of such information.

Anyway, when we look back at the day God revealed his divine intentions to us and we thwarted his holy scheme to make scientists out of us, we laugh.