Cheese, Cookie Monster, and Jesus

I took a sort of happenstance hiatus from the blog because my husband came down to visit me this weekend. Sounds really weird, but as some of you may know, he lives in Canada and I live in the States. We're currently working on Canuckifying me. Good ole "Lunger" visiting me makes me happy in a jump-up-and-down-clapping-my-hands kind of way. I guess what I'm saying is, I actually had better things to do than surf the net with one hand and pick my nose with the other for the last few days.

Last week was sort of weird, anyway. Nobody came in to work with funny things up their bums, although we did see one of our regulars, a sweet transvestite boy who seems to have a problem with chest pain, but never forgets to wear his earrings and eye shadow to the hospital. On Monday morning, I received a strange box in the mail. The return address read such-and-such hospital, which is where I work. It looked like one of those boxes that new checks come in, so I was a little excited.

Alas, there was no money. The box was full of cheese. Yes, you read correctly, cheese. Two blocks of cheddar cheese, one yellow and one white, fit securely in the deceptively nondescript cardboard box. My first thought: "why?" Luckily, I didn't have to wait long for the answer to that question. Nestled between the two logs of cheese was a note.

It was a nice, if generic, note from the CAO of the hospital thanking me for my "stellar*" service during the last two months while we moved the hospital into the new facility. It was printed on one of those glossy pieces of paper one always finds in credit card offers, stamped with fake signatures. I might've thought this a nice gesture, but everyone at the hospital got the same note, same cheese.

Why did he give us all cheese? It's very good cheese, don't get me wrong. Lunger can attest to this. However, all Monday night and Tuesday morning I fielded calls from fellow employees wanting to know if I got cheese too.

Psycho redneck girl called first, "D'yall get cheeese?? Reckon what fer?" Several theories were offered throughout the course of my shift. One girl I work with suggested that the CAO wants us to take less bathroom breaks. Her boyfriend, who also works with us, conjectured that the CAO probably made some under-the-counter, back-scratching deal involving free colonoscopies with the cheese manufacturer and got the logs o'cheese for free. This, I think, is the most likely explanation. He wanted to give us something fairly cheap, but somewhat healthy. You don't even have to refrigerate it until it's opened! Good call, Mr. CAO.

Anyway, after cheese night, I came home and started to unwind for a good day's rest. I was sitting outside smoking a cigarette in my reindeer pajamas and Cookie Monster slippers whilst reading one of those trashy vampire novels I can't seem to put down, when who should come trotting down the hill but a pack of young men in suits and ties.

At first I thought they were Mormons, but they didn't have bikes and they weren't wearing badges that said, "Elder So-and-so." My best friend in high school was Mormon, and so was one of my college roommates, therefore I've become fairly adept at recognizing young Mormons on their mission. Unfortunately they were Jehovah's Witnesses.

Don't get me wrong, I don't care how you worship God. Do whatever you want. It's none of my business. But there I am, having a cigarette and reading a book, in my pajamas, for crying out loud. Which is, I guess, why they told me that Jesus's message is not obsolete, handed me a Watchtower and scampered away. Poor kids. I wasn't going to be mean. Maybe bored, but not evil. Oh well, maybe Jehovah's Witnesses think Cookie Monster is Satan's avatar.

*ed. note: has anyone ever used the word, "stellar," in a sentence without the slightest note of irony?