Spud Guns and The World’s Most Dangerous Parishes
July 14, 2005
It is a sweet comfort to be missed when one is away, and judging by the growing reader agitation in my in-box, I have been blessed with an abundance of comfort, though not, I regret to say, any of the southern variety.
Not to fear, I was merely called to the difficult duty of putting down a monastic uprising recently occurring in the steppe-lands. After hitching a ride on a turnip truck from my study, it took me all of three days journey on goat-back from the nearest road to the spot of trouble. As my readers know, I am not one to blush at a pique of anti-modern eccentricity, but really! I arrived just in time to scatter a lot of impertinent monks preparing to lash the poor abbot with what appeared to be wet onion leaves. Quickly surveying the grounds, it appeared to me that the unruly monks had run riot through the place, though the only permanent damage, to my eternal dismay, was to the sweet potato plants. I put the fear of damnation in them all with a stern fatherly condemnation and a royal brandishing of vestments and accoutrements of vicarly authority.
You can imagine my distress at the conclusion of this scene, then, on discovering that the entire episode had been an enormous misunderstanding. Apparently, what Vatican spies (steppelanders have not the luxury of coyness, so while here I shall not indulge that particular clerical conceit either) took for an uprising was in actuality a bizarre centennial celebration and feast of this nearly forgotten Slavo-Aleutian Order. The Abbot’s onion lashing was merely part of a purification process between his banya and his ice plunge–a left-over religious ritual of the locals encouraged by the soviets for a time despite their atheism, no doubt.
Later, in private consultation with the Abbot, he confessed that the celebration and feast had gotten a bit out of hand. The problem, it would seem, was that the monastery had been the accidental recipient of a UN humanitarian aid drop intended, no doubt, for some refugee camp somewhere, but flown off course, or perhaps confused by the monks’ generally humble appearance. The Abbot confided that the package had contained nothing of use, the food was awful and the Anna Quindlen novels were incomprehensible to the simple steppe brethren, “But the Spudguns have simply wreaked havoc on things!” the Abbot cried in frustration.
“Spudguns?” I asked.
“Yes, Spudguns! Spudguns!” the Abbot grew quite agitated, “Potato Rifles! Lpomoea Launchers! Quit living in the past Father, this is the 21st Century! Laser-guided bolt-action aluminum models capable of hurling a vegetable in excess of 500mph are all the rage in the west I hear. Well the drop shipment didn’t have any of those, but apparently the UN muckety-mucks thought it would violate the little refugee urchins’ rights not to have at least the basic model spudguns enjoyed by their spoiled counterparts in the affluent and increasingly delinquent west!!!”
This outburst stunned me quite to silence, a state I am not often reduced to, and it seemed to take all of the Abbot’s energy as well. He continued in a sorrowful tone: “Forgive me Father for my disrespectful manner, I forget myself. It’s just that the junior brothers and even some of the senior brothers have quite taken to these toys, and the maintenance of order with their presence has become difficult.”
“The potato patch…?” I ventured.
“Yes!” he let out in a doleful lament, “ever since the spudgun it has been impossible to keep the vegetables safe. I am at my wit’s end Father.”
Understanding perfectly the vital spiritual function of a well kept vegetable patch, you will no doubt appreciate that I immediately assayed the situation as presenting the gravest of eternal threats to this small enclave of Mother Church. I quickly remedied the situation. This episode will no doubt find its way into the travel memoir I am currently at work on, meant to take advantage of recent trends in the genre, entitled, The World’s Most Dangerous Parishes.
Readers wishing to contribute to the WMDP project should email Fr. Jape. -Eds
Note to the Holy Fool: Fr. Jape has rushed off again without responding to your meme-questions, which we passed to him by carrier pigeon as usual. According to the Abbot mentioned above, Fr. Jape read your message, laughed, and said something about never watching movies but being in many of them. He mentioned his role in Fellini’s Satyricon and something unpleasant in the early days with Tom Edison involving a monkey and a dancing rhino inside the Black Maria. -Eds.
This is Spud Guns and The World’s Most Dangerous Parishes in The Japery, a part of The New Pantagruel. Previously: Hunkering Down | Next: Against Progressives and Progressivisms | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)
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