Now I am become Jeff, Annoyer of Worlds (536 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.75 on 9 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by rollerboognish (View user info) at 2005-02-28 18:06:09 EST
No one I've ever known could fuck up a church picnic like Jeff.
Before I had to leave the state for reasons mentioned later in this story, I used to have a pretty sweet deal going at the local Lutheran church. I was a schemer. A mighty blasphemer. A ring-tailed lemur. A Cleveland Steamer. A... yeah. I went to church for the free food. That's what I did.
It wasn't easy, either. I had to sing those dopey-ass songs and pretend to like it. True, I have been told by at least one person (including myself) that I have the voice of an '80s glam goddess, but that was no consolation. I was using my God-given talents to serve God instead of selfishly making money for myself, and it was eating me up inside.
Then there was the pastor, a guy who could drone and rant at the same time. Old enough to have talked Moses' ear off. He also had the ability to make you feel bitterly ashamed of yourself just by looking at you, as though he were your grandfather who had just put a blank tape into the VCR to record "Matlock" and discovered that it was actually your homemade porno.
I felt like a martyr for the munchies, but I persevered, like the saint I wasn't, and I earned my reward.
The picnics were a miniature Paradise made of fruit salad and shredded pork. But even paradise can be a bitch sometimes. Heaven has its televangelists, Valhalla has its flatulence, and our picnics had Jeff.
Jeff was a Luther-head through and through. He had his own personal notch in the Bible Belt. He wore sandals "because Jesus wore sandals" and smoked Camels "because Jesus rode a camel." He also had a hobby of making the worst puns this side of children's television. He once told me that Judaism was named after Moses' first girlfriend, Judy. I tried humoring him by suggesting that they called it the Holy Bible because it was full of holes. He stuck a cake of soap in my mouth. Just had one in his pocket for some reason.
On the Sunday that turned out to be my last weekend in town, I had two plates stacked up like the towers of Babel and Pisa, respectively. One climbed to the heavens, the other sort of leaned over to the side. Jeff walked up right behind me as I was sitting down, and offered a nugget of advice - "Gluttons bust their buttons!" - while slapping me on the back. Gone was Pisa. I cut my losses and started in on Babel.
Jeff pointed at the pasta salad, and suddenly I could feel another bad joke coming, as if someone had aimed a loaded pun at my head. A sawed-off shotpun.
"Pass da salad. PASS DA SALAD! Her her her her her!!"
The pasta salad was sitting directly in front of him, but he didn't let that stand in the way of his clever joke. I picked up the dish, moved it over a couple inches, and set it back down.
"THANKS BROTHER!!"
He had a habit of treating my ear like the mouthpiece of a telephone which had his deaf grandmother on the other line.
"For God's sake, put me on speakerphone! I mean, back the hell off!"
Shit. Once again, Jeff had forced me to shoot my mouth off in a place where they took God and hell seriously. And it happened just as the pastor was walking by with a plate full of baked beans.
The old lady next to me threw her arms up, appalled and ready to shriek a prayer on behalf of my soul. As she did, her toaster-sized purse hit the pastor's plate, sprinkling him with food. A baked bean baptism.
As the pastor gave me that heart-wrenching look, bean gravy trickled down his cheek like a brown tear. It looked like I had broken his heart. It smelled like he had broken some wind.
(On an unrelated note, if I were a flatulent womanizer, I'd make that my motto: Breaking Hearts and Breaking Wind. I'd put it on the back of a ratty black t-shirt and ride around on a greasy motorcycle in faintly brown-stained pants.)
A voice like the one Moses must have heard from the bush came suddenly from the depths of that old man's lungs. I still can't tell you what it said, but I can tell you that it was still echoing while I was in my car, on my way south.
Regrettably, I could make out Jeff's final words to me as I drove off: "Tell Satan I said hello! Hell! OOooooooooo!"
User Reviews
Submitted by ETS (user info) at 2005-03-31 15:14:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by jumpinjellyfish (user info) at 2005-03-01 10:08:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm impressed.
Submitted by sparkle_pink (user info) at 2005-03-01 03:17:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hot
Submitted by Flying_buttmonkey (user info) at 2005-03-01 03:06:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I think this should have rated more, and got a higher mark. I always think it's a shame when good stuff gets passed over. Mediocre story, but it's ALL in the telling.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2005-03-01 02:10:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 because i am linkwhoring http://www.ubersite.com/m/54609
Submitted by HadToBeDone (user info) at 2005-02-28 23:23:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
As the pastor gave me that heart-wrenching look, bean gravy trickled down his cheek like a brown tear. It looked like I had broken his heart. It smelled like he had broken some wind.
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Well earned. Very well earned.
Submitted by rollerboognish (user info) at 2005-02-28 20:48:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I like how this has only been reviewed by people named Dave. Let's keep it that way.
Now that I read it again, this post sucked ass. Sorry about that.
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2005-02-28 20:39:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Not too shabby.
-Dave
Submitted by dodahdave (user info) at 2005-02-28 19:00:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I don't know what to make of this.
Good title, though, so +1 for you.