About four and a half years ago, I took a little trip to Chicago. And boy was it an adventure! Of course it was...because I was with Kristen again. Somehow she and I don't have "normal" trips. They're always adventures with the oddest things happening and we always laugh ourselves silly. And this was no different.
I'll save some of our mischief for another day because there are photos to find before I share it. Some of you will remember it, but for some it will be new so I'll tell the tale another day.
But for today I want to focus on the whole reason I was in Chicago. Kristen's 3rd of 4 daughters was being baptised in this big Catholic church there. Now I'm not Catholic and other than a wedding or two haven't been to a Catholic church so it was a new experience for me. The baptism was on a Sunday afternoon when there was no one in the church except for a few groups of people there for their babies' baptisms.
I basically knew no one but Kristen and her hubby before going that weekend, though I'd met a few of the others that morning. Our group waited and eventually they called for Kristen's daughter's baptism and the group went forward to stand up for the baptism. I wasn't an "official" member of the party so I was standing on the fringe. So when the baby began crying, Kristen finally gave the signal for me to go grab a bottle for her. So I quietly headed back to the rows where the diaper bag and all our coats, etc., were sitting. It was several rows over.
A couple things to note here. The church was huge. The floors were hard wood (except maybe up the aisles??) And the place was more or less empty of people. All that set us up for some LOVELY acoustics. Translation: You'd better be quiet or EVERYONE will hear and there will be a TREMENDOUS echo.
So I quietly head toward the diaper bag and the coveted baby bottle. I make it over most inconspicuously. But then as I went to pick up the bottle, I'm not sure what happened but it fell with a LOUD *THUMP*. Now,what would YOU have done? Hmmm...? I suppose most normal folk would have thrown an apologetic look toward the folks over at the baptism (because, after all, they're ALL looking at you with the racket you just caused.)
But what did I do? I'll tell you what I did: I HIT THE DECK! I didn't want everyone to see me. lol I was too embarrassed. Of course, then I had the predicament of deciding what to do now that I was down on the floor. Do I just...stand up? Didn't sound too smart. Of course, dropping to the floor wasn't a stroke of genius. Do I look for an exit? That wouldn't do much good. After all, Kristen is waiting for the bottle with a very unhappy baby. So I did the only thing I could do. I stayed low and snuck to the back of the church until I thought everyone would have returned their attention to the priest and I QUIETLY stood up and quickly made my way back to the group, delivering the bottle.
Of course, everyone in our group KNEW it had been me...as I could tell by the smiles of some who saw me returning up the aisle. But apparently I'd kept the priest guessing. Later, Kristen told me that when they all heard the loud *THUMP*, they all turned to look, and seeing nothing, the priest said something like, "Guess we've got a ghost today." hee hee hee...errrr, I mean, "BOO."
