Fun Size Lent!

Before I go any further here, let me just say that I don't hate Christianity or any other religion.  There are just some things about a few of the beliefs and practices that I think are silly, and I think we all think that to some degree, don't we?  I guess it's like anything else where it's not the the religion itself that sucks, it's the people who act a certain way that suck.  Kind of like how we don't hate the Yankees nearly as much as we hate their fans, or whatever sports team we choose to hate.

For one thing, Lent bothers me.

I'm a pretty big athiest/agnostic.  And I'm not happy about it or smug about it, rubbing it in people's faces and calling them dumb for believing in stuff.  Believe me when I say that I envy them for having belief in a higher power.  How can I not be a little jealous when all I really believe is that we can have a few fun moments in life but eventually we die and rot, and that's about it.  Dying and rotting.

But if I did believe that there was a Heaven and a Hell, and if living a good life and following all the rules sent me to heaven, and living a crappy one meant going to hell, I'm pretty sure I would be the best Christian the world has ever saw.

"Who let Scar up here?"

So heaven would have to be so awesome that we couldn't even possibly imagine it.  I suppose you would wake up at around 12PM every day, the weather would be about like San Diego, you are nailing a different super model every day before getting out of bed (maybe you scroll through a list and pick one out of on your heaven phone), you have an appointment to play some two-on-two beach volleyball with Malcolm X (and it turns out he is a very cool guy), then you go to the best barbecue ever where you roast a unicorn like a pig roast, and it's the best unicorn you ever ate that whole year.  Then you sit around a campfire with some more great dead people, John Lennon is there with a guitar, and everyone has a sing-a-long while drinking craft beers from the finest of Heaven microbreweries.  And you probably meet another super model there and have more insane sex that you never tried, perhaps in zero gravity or something.  Then the next day makes that whole bookended with super models day look completely shitty.



Now, if I'm a Christian and that is awaiting me if I just follow some simple rules, however strange they may sound, I have to believe I'm following them to a T because Hell doesn't sound to good.

Your standard day in Hell starts with being woken up by the bullhorn demon (who has a giant bullhorn for a face) at 5:30AM after sleeping for 25 minutes.  And you slept standing up.  You're immediately ushered with into the line at the DMV where you will be pushed and shoved trying to avoid the fires in the middle of the office, because there are annoying fucking fires everywhere in fucking Hell.  When you finally get to the front of the line, the fat crabby demon working the counter tells you that you don't have right document you need for your Hell driver's license, so you will have to be tortured for the remainder of the day and get up the next day to get in line again.  And torture has got to be pretty bad if hell itself is constantly totally awful.  I'm thinking that you are tied up in a room somewhere, naked, and there are demons with hot pokers, like how people brand cows, and they're playing a movie of the shitty life you led, laughing at each of the mistakes you made, and poking you at those moments, like some kind of demented and painful drinking game.  And today's clips are exclusively from your miserable high school experience.  With close ups of your acne and lots of rewinding for particularly horrible moments.

So if that's what heaven is like and that's what hell is like, I got to believe I'm making some sort of major sacrifice during Lent.  I would have nine or ten things to give up - some things that would make the big dogs upstairs quite pleased with me.  Something that would bump me ahead of a few people.  Maybe I would give up hitting the snooze button, masturbation, sugar, alcohol, skipping work outs, and just about anything else that is bad for me.  And you know what?  While I'm at it, maybe I'll do whatever else it says I should do in the bible all year round if it means I can go to heaven to play beach volleyball with Malcolm X and avoid going to that DMV line in hell.

"Look! How fun!"

I'll tell you what I would NOT do during Lent if I believed in Christianity: Give up Snickers bar.  Not giving up chocolate bars, chocolate in general, or sweets in general.  Nope.  Too hard.  This guy just gave up one specific brand of candy bar.  And this asshole will eat Baby Ruth's, Mounds, and Watchamacallits all month long.  And you know what?  If someone offered him a fun size Snickers, he would probably just say "fuck it" and eat the thing and make an excuse like, "Well, it's just a fun size, after all.  Jesus will understand that what I really gave up was the full size one.  Sure, he was nailed to a cross after dragging the damn thing 200 yards while being whipped, and I gave up my full size Snickers.  He will be quite pleased with my sacrifice."


So there you have it.  I don't believe in much of anything, but I like to think that if I were a Christian, I would be a better one than the Snickers bar guy.  That's all I'm saying.

Mike

Gancey Girlfriend and I were watching some show on E! where they were talking about all the people who died in 2009, which was way too many people, and they were showing bits from Michael Jackson's funeral. During Stevie Wonder's speech, and I imagine he talked more than he played, which is par for the course for Stevie, he said something along the lines that we needed Mike here on earth, but God must have needed him more, to which Gancey Girlfriend said . . .

Gancey Girlfriend: Why should we assume that he is going to Heaven?

Dr. Ken: That's true! He could be getting molested by demons in hell even as we speak!

GG: Did you really just say that?

DK: What would that be like? Wow! That would be no picnic, but I guess he deserves it if he, in fact, touched all those kids.

GG: (looks back at the television, ignoring him)

DK: Do you think Beelzebub* has a devil put aside for Mike . . . For Mike . . . For MIKE!! (starts into the heavy metal part of Bohemian Rhapsody).

GG: (Continues to try to ignore but cracks a smile, which only encourages him)
_______________________________
*I thought for sure that I read somewhere that Beelzebub is the guy in Hell who tortures the crap out of people and makes them scream so loud we can hear it on Earth, but I couldn't find it on the Them Internets. If anyone can find anything about that, I'm thinking either Michael 5000 or Zen Wizard would be especially up for this challenge, let me know in the comments.