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Gnome misses out on VIP experience

My favorite sports-related comic shows a football player praising God for his victory, and, in the next panel, God is watching hockey. I like to think that, if God should lower himself to the tribalistic rooting for a particular group of grown men playing a children’s game because of the color of their jersey and location of their taxpayer-funded playing surface, that God watches hockey.

Maybe he would do it so he can ask the devil if he saw the hockey game, then go, “oh, wait … no ice in hell. Sorry.” (Probably not; God isn’t petty, but I am. In a few decades, I will be able to tell that one directly to Old Man Splitfoot.)

Anyway, one of my local congregations planned to host a notable religious figure, and they asked me to come. I agreed, because I’m going to need all my church ladies’ prayers in order to avoid the forementioned stand-up routine in the hottest club in the universe. Also, because a little politeness goes a long way, and I will make reasonable accommodations for anyone who is polite.

If you’re actually nice to me, the way this congregation is? I will crawl across hot coals and broken glass. Y’all might want to remember that, the next time you need something. Grandmama Maudine always said be nice to people first, because once you’ve been rude, anything nice you do afterward is suspect. She phrased it more colorfully, but the sentiment is the same.

I mentioned to the newsroom I would be covering this, because we’re in the business of communication. Also, it makes it easier to plan — yes, there is some planning involved — when we know what everyone is doing.

“You should see if the VIP will bless the hockey gnome,” one of my co-workers said.

I’m not telling you who this person was, because I try to protect the guilty and this person would lie and deny everything, so there’s no point.

Anyway, as ridiculous as this is, I couldn’t shake the idea. The hockey gnome has a mystical connection to That Team That Shall Not Be Named, which can be manipulated by the wrong (or right) people handling it.

The potency of a VIP blessing could be enormous. My eyes glazed over at the potential.

The newsroom took note and my co-workers told me not to embarrass our 200-year-old institution by dragging a mass-produced ceramic do-dad with a team logo slapped on it in a cynical bid to push more product and ask the VIP to bless it.

“What if I just put the gnome in my purse and didn’t take it out?” I said. “It could be blessed by proximity.”

“The VIP isn’t Wi-Fi,” my co-worker scoffed.

Of course not; Wi-Fi can’t get you into heaven, it only gets you an Internet connection.

Rest assured, I didn’t take the gnome to the event, because this congregation is nice to me, and, if I can crawl over glass and coals, I can restrain myself enough not to embarrass them horribly.

Although I am positive that, if the VIP had taken a selfie with the gnome, it would have gone viral.

(Wallace-Minger, a resident of Weirton, is community editor of The Weirton Daily Times.)

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