Dirty Dishes

A few weeks ago, my one and only Utah friend invited me to a lunch she was having for her birthday. And although she is my only Utah friend, I am most certainly not her only Utah friend so there were going to be about 8 other people there. I am going to call her Lisa, because while that is not her name I think it has a nice ring to it. And let me say that while my friend Lisa is Mormon, her level of Mormoness is largely influenced by whomevers company she is presently enjoying. That is to say, when no Mormons are around she can party like a drunken sorority sister on the rebound during rush week. But put a few other Mormons in the mix, and she is the picture of the Molly Mormon Happy Valley Homemaker. Sadly this is how most Mormons are. I don’t know if any of you have heard the old joke: When you take a Mormon fishing how do you keep them from drinking all your beer? Take two Mormons. I wasn’t too worried about the lunch though, because who would go down the path of righteousness when they had the chance to go down the path that rocks?

Anyway, I was pretty excited about having an afternoon with other adults eating good food possibly drinking a little wine and maybe, as ladies often do when they over-imbibe at a luncheon much to their embarrassment the next day, find out who goes down and who prefers the backdoor action. Not that I actually care about other peoples sexual preferences, it’s just that I find drunken sex talk funny. When other people do it. Naturally, with my expectations being built up so high, the only place left to go was down. Down, down, down to the bitter depths of despair. And that’s where I went.

I arrived at the restaurant a little bit late, so I sat down and Lisa introduced me to everyone. There were a couple of neighbors, a couple coworkers, a sister-in-law, and another random friend. Some of these people I knew, some I didn’t. The waiter came over to take my drink order so I scanned the table to see what kind of poison everyone else was taking. This was my first mistake. There was nothing stronger than diet Coke at that table. I was in trouble and I knew it then. This was a Mormon party. I ordered an iced tea, because I enjoy iced tea and also to be a little snotty. Mormons hate iced tea. I might as well have said I’m a Lesbian Alcoholic Democrat when I ordered iced tea. It’s the same thing.

Because I was a little late, they were already deeply engaged in conversation and I couldn’t follow it all. It was something about Who Knows What and You Know Who and I Could Care Less. What I did notice about this conversation was that it was littered with very specific Mormon words and phrases, like Relief Society, Young Women’s, and Sacrament Meeting. Words and phrases that I didn’t think should be used during a party of mixed company when there is a chance that somebody there is not Mormon and might not know what the hell you are talking about. But of course this is Utah so the natural assumption is that everybody knows. And truthfully? Everyone probably did. I found this pretty discouraging. But of the few people I knew at the party, although they were raised in the church, I knew they didn’t go to church anymore and they weren’t involved with it in any way, were they? That’s when I discovered all those people had actually gone back because they now had children. I find it somewhat odd that they didn’t enjoy the church enough to keep going when they became adults, but they feel their kids should go now that they are parents. It’s like they just don’t have any idea how to raise children so they are falling back on a repressive religious system to do that raising for them. That or they just want their kids to be in the club. Well that club sucks people! And frankly I found this down right depressing.

Sometimes I worry that I write too much about my negative feelings for Mormons on this website. I mean, the Mormons shouldn’t take this personally because believe you me I have an equal disdain for all religions. It just so happens that I was raised by Mormons and I am currently surrounded by Mormons, so that gives me a lot of ammunition. Right now I bet there are about 12 Mormon church buildings within a 5 mile radius of my house, with about 1000 people attending each building every Sunday. That’s 12,000 stupid people that I see at the store, or at my kids school, or that I just drive by around my neighborhood EVERY SINGLE DAY. I don’t know that pervasive is even the right word to begin to describe it.