Sunday Funday

Sunday, the day of the Lord, a day we dedicate to Jesus.

 Lovely, isn’t it? 

Now, I’ll be completely honest….i think my Catholic friends have it a hell of a lot easier than us Copts. No…let me rephrase that, I KNOW my Catholic friends have it a lot easier than us Copts. And how do I know that? I mean, we could base it off the shear fact that by the time my Catholic friends have gone to church, gone to brunch (because white people LOVE things like brunch – and I think it’s partially because it sounds expensive and seems classy), gone to the mall, gone to Petco to buy their $700 investment they call a dog some new doggie toy, and then gone home to prepare for the second half of their day (which will probably be somewhere out on some boat, while they hope that all their morning prayers are answered and they actually get a tan and not a mean second degree burn)..while they’ve accomplished all that, I’m still in liturgy, praying to the Jumbo Jesus behind the altar, that the deacons sing that hymn a little faster and I’m crossing my fingers that when we get to the gospel (which basically feels like it’s coming 5 minutes past never) that it’s actually short today.

My Catholic friends have such an easy breezy beautiful cover girl view of Sunday. While most of the time, Sunday just stresses me the hell out.

Let’s face it, Catholic Sunday doesn’t at all have to be about being Catholic. Shoot, my white friends don’t even need to get up on Sunday if they don’t want to, but if they do, and they end up going to church, that’s like a small miracle within itself! Church is basically an accessory that you deal with if you feel like your weekend outfit isn’t accessorized enough. That’s the way I see it. But let’s say this particular 20 somethin year old Catholic friend wakes up on Sunday, and wants to go to church….good little Catholic!

So good little Catholic friend wakes up on her bright sunny Sunday morning, and probably stares at the little plump bluebird singing outside her window sill. I always imagine white people have nice birds outside their windows just chirping away every Sunday...

She probably admires said bluebird for a second, and then gets up to stretch. White people love to stretch. Better yet, make it Pilates. White people LOVE pilates. You could never argue that point with me. I barely know how to spell pilates, meanwhile all my white friends have a closet full of spandex pilates pants and skimpy pilates tops, and all secretly have degrees in pilates world domination. I, on the other hand, would never be caught dead in all spandex. But that’s totally beside the point. So good little Catholic friend wakes up, does her pilates like the yoga queen she was trained to be, and then probably skips her happy little self downstairs. 

And I’m sure when she arrives downstairs, her kitchen probably looks like a Pillsbury sponsored segment on the Food Network. Pillsbury everything! Pillsbury biscuits, and rolls, and cinnamon thingies, and probably some Bisquick pancakes too. And good little Catholic friend’s mom probably even bought that syrup stuff that comes in that plastic jar that looks like a lady. Yea, because white people LOVE that syrup in that lady looking jar! And, because all my white friends are picky, I bet you good little Catholic friend is picky too, and probably skips past all the Pillsbury goodness and goes straight for some Fruit Loops.

 Plain as the color white on a wall. 

Fruit Loops.

 Or what’s that snap, crackle, pop crap that all the white kids like? I dunno, but it’s either Fruit Loops or snap, crackle, pop. I’m telling you! And the best part of good little Catholic friend’s happy Sunday morning is that she probably doesn’t even care about  the Pillsbury feast in front of her face, meanwhile, my mom would rather be caught dead before she endorses anything Pillsbury related. What crescent roll? Why have nice fluffy buttery crescent roll when I could have pita bread from the freezer instead? Ugh!

So good little Catholic friend has now officially finished her Fruit Loops and heads back upstairs to find a church appropriate outfit, aka just picks anything from her closet. Sleeves, no sleeves, shorts, skirts, jeans, whatever. She picks something, probably that Polo Ralph Lauren t-shirt dress that her and every other white girl on the planet has in every color it could have ever been manufactured in, and heads to the bathroom to shower. And this isn’t gonna be just any shower, because white people LOVE bath products. And since they have the world’s most perfect hair anyways (next to the Asians of course!), their bath products are fun. They get all the fun mess, that smells pretty and looks pretty and probably explodes with glitter and sunshine once you add water to it. Good little Catholic friend probably even has a big pink loofa. White people LOVE loofas. I think they just like the word loofa. Who knows really...

Once good little Catholic completes her bathing ritual, it’s time to throw on that t-shirt dress, do her hair for like two seconds, because I mean really. What is there to do? It’s white people hair. But anyways, she does her hair, and heads out the door.

Now let’s get real. Catholic mass takes about as long as filling up your gas and getting a car wash, and maybe adding a stop to McDonalds in there too. By the time you walk in Catholic mass it’s time to leave! Half an hour, 45 minutes max, and the Catholics have said hello goodbye to Jesus and are bum rushing the door, flingin holy water all over the place in their rush to get to their cars. It’s like you blinked and church was over, and now Sunday can really begin.

Must be nice.

I’m not bitter…at all.

Let me explain to you what that same Sunday would probably be like for me.

 I wake up to the voice of my dad screaming at me, “WAKE UP YA CHRISTINE!!!! WE HAVE TO GO TO ZA CHURCH! WE HAVE TO GO EARLY! WAKE UPPPPPPPPP!” Lovely, he’s already begun to yell, at it’s 45 minutes before my alarm is supposed to go off. That’s gotta be some kind of personal best for him. Great. Just great. It’s gonna be an amazing Sunday.

After ignoring my dad and shoving one of my pillows over my head and holding it in place hoping that I fall back asleep, I hear my dad thumping up the stairs. Thump Thump Thump Thump, and I just know he’s making his way to my room, and any second now he will fling open my door and loudly proclaim that Jesus is waiting and I need to get up. And just like clockwork, daddy flings open my door, lets it slam against the wall, and screams, “GET UP! UP! WE HAVE TO GO TO CHURCH! IT’S GETTING LATE!” Seriously, you would think the world was ending by the way my dad screams at me to get up.

“DAD!,” I scream, “GET OUT OF MY ROOM I STILL HAVE LIKE 40 MINUTES, I’M NOT GETTING UP NOW!!!” To which he doesn’t hear the end of that statement, because he’s already left to the study to fish out whatever he was looking for. “UGHHHHHH DAD! SHUT THE DOOR UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!” He doesn’t shut the door because he’s no longer even by my door, and he knows how much I hate having the door open when I sleep. He did it on purpose, just to be annoying, I know it! So I quickly jump out of bed, slam the door, jump back in bed, and shut my eyes hoping against all hope that I hurry up and fall back asleep. 

After shutting my eyes really tight for about 2 minutes, I can’t take it, I have to know what time it is. So I open one eye, and one eye only, “Ugh” I think to myself, “I hate my life!” It’s 7:35 in the morning. And is my dad nuts? What the hell? What does he want us to do??? Get to church and sit on the curb waiting for abouna to arrive? Absolutely not, I am going to sleep!

 Literally two minutes after that I hear my daddy come stomping back down the hallway...”Please don’t open my door, please don’t open my door, please do-…” my thoughts are cut off, my bedroom door goes flying open, and once again slams into the wall (and did I mention I HATE it when that happens?!), and I hear my daddy scream into my room, “CHRISTINE GET…UP…NOW…WE…HAVE…TO…GO…TO…”. 

“God I wish I was white, why couldn’t I just be white, white people don’t go through this at all…” I frantically think to myself, “FINE FINE JUST GET OUT MY ROOM I AM GETTING UP, OK? HAPPY?! WE ARE ALL GOING TO CHURCH BEFORE JESUS HIMSELF DON’T WORRY!”

I mumble some words of aggravation under my breath as I throw my legs over the side of my bed and groan as I attempt to get up. “Good…very good, Daddy loves his Tina!” my dad happily chirps as he blows me a kiss and makes his way to the stairs. Yea, so easy for him, mission accomplished, I am awake and miserable.

As I miserably stumble past my window, I realize that it’s dark and gross outside, and it’s raining, and it’s been raining, and it’s still raining, and I am so over it. I don’t have imaginary conversations with the non-existant bluebirds out my window, I certainly don’t do pilates, yoga, or even stretch. I barely even know how to stretch without falling over. And I definitely don’t go skipping downstairs to see what I’m gonna eat, due to the fact that we don’t eat until after we take communion. Did I mention no drinking either? Doesn’t matter if I wake up feeling like I’ve just wandered the deserts of Egypt for the past decade, no water for me. And it’s serious. No food. No drink. No sustenance. 

And I pause to think about my good little Catholic friends, probably stuffing their face with their Fruit Loops and snap, crackle, pop, while their cookie cutter moms probably urge them to eat more Pillsbury. That’s IF they are even awake at this god forsaken hour.  I think about them and in that moment I am soooo jealous. But I can’t think for too long, because here comes dad again yelling about he doesn’t hear the water running yet. I don’t even respond. I am 24. I don’t need to respond....This is clearly a lie i continue to tell myself, because we all know when you are Egyptian, it doesn't matter how old you are, you always have to respond to your parents. Or God help you.

I turn back to my closet, and attempt to pick out a church outfit. Gotta cover my shoulders, gotta cover my knees, definitely can’t wear jeans, or shorts, or capri’s….great, I just grab something and head to the bathroom, all the while thinking, how could my life suck so bad.

Once I’m in the shower I realize that I need to buy more of that one type of shampoo and conditioner that works on my hair. Where did I buy it at again? Ugh.. I don’t have a lot left this morning, and I am not in the mood to fight with my hair, so I am praying that it just cooperates. No really, I am not in the mood, and I am praying for my sanity. Unlike my white counterparts, my hair happens to have a mind and an attitude of it’s own. And most of the time, I’d like to say my hair has quite the attitude problem. 

After all the shampoo, conditioner, mousse, and hair spray, I am afraid to move my head for fear that it will mess up my hair. But I can’t just stand in the mirror all day, because that’s not possible, and besides that, we all have to get to church before Jesus, remember? I decide to sweet talk my hair, and hope that it doesn’t hear the panicked undertone in my voice, as I haul it out of the bathroom, throw on my heels, grab my purse, all just in the knick of time to hear my mother yelling about how she’s gonna start leaving us and going to church first. Same ole same ole…at least we finally made it all into one vehicle. I’m tired, I’m thirsty, I’m annoyed, but at least we are on our way.

We finally get to church, and we rush in to our usual spots. And my mom hands me my head scarf thingy, and I put it on my head, and hope that A) it doesn’t continually fall off today and B) it doesn’t mess up my hair. And I stand for a second and come to the realization that I will be standing in this same spot for the next 3 hours. Oh why did I decide to wear such high heels?

Why am I so stressed out? Is it even possible to be this stressed out this early on a Sunday morning? And then I look around, at least it’s not just me. One of the older deacons is shooting death stares at a group of the younger deacons. And I start to wonder if he knows the more he stares the more they laugh. They think the whole thing is funny. Yet he stares and stares and stares, and I really want to send him a note that says,

Dear Uncle,

You can’t really shoot lasers out of your eyeballs, so stop straining them before you go blind or something.

Love,

Shalaby

And just at that very moment, some older tunt in our church comes to the pew in front of us, and proceeds to say hello to us and then ask my mom when exactly I’m getting married. I really don’t think liturgy is an appropriate place to discuss the exact details of my marriage plans especially considering the fact that I have NO marriage plans! What the heck? The tunt pats me on my hand and tells me not to worry, God will send me a husband soon. I just smile and say thank you, and resolve to keep count of how many times someone Egyptian asks me when I’m getting married.

I avert my eyes and see that Abouna is now going around the church with the incense, and there’s so much incense in the air, I begin to wonder about whether or not it could actually kill someone with breathing problems. Because I promise you, that very incense has almost killed a few members of the church. Asthma or not, us Copts will show up to church and stand in the front row whether or not the incense will kill us. 

And then I start to wonder if abouna is hot under that outfit he has to wear, with all that hot smoke blowing in his face. Yea, he’s gotta be hot. I’d be hot. Maybe that’s why the church air conditioner is blowing so cold to the point that I feel like a brown fudge popsicle! It’s 90 degrees outside and I’m wearing a jacket…in church…with the smoke all around me, and the stupid head scarf keeps falling off my head, and I’m still thirsty. And now I have to use the bathroom, but the same Teta has been in there for like half an hour. 30 minutes of bathroom. That’s how long she’s been in there, for real.

 Just…when are we reading the gospel? At least we’d be half way done liturgy by then. I mean shoot!

I look down at my phone to see what time it is, and realize that one of my friends texted me.

Friend: What are you doing? Let’s go have brunch

Me: Church…u know that

Friend: So just leave?

Me: Not an option

Me: Never an option

Friend: Ok so when do you finish?

Me: Never

Friend: Never?

Me: Yes, never…no seriously I need to start paying attention my mom is looking at me dirty

Friend: Ohh ok…ok then maybe we can do lunch

Me: No

Friend: why?

Me: I’ll still be in church

Friend: still?

Me: Yea

Friend: Are you for real?

Me: As a heart attack

Friend: What about late lunch, at like 1

Me: No

Friend: WHY?

Friend: If you say church one more time I’m going to be really pissed off at you

Me: Sunday School

Friend: Oh you have got to be joking. Ok fine, I will just see you later

Me: sorry

Friend: What the hell are you doing in that church of yours anyways???

Me: [pausing to stare ahead of me and convince my mom that I’m really praying…at least the deacons are doing good]

Friend: Hellllooooo, what are y’all doing in there?!

Me: Praying, what do u think we r doing? Eating cupcakes and playing candyland???

Friend: Shut up, why does it take so long

Me: Listen…you are white. Y’alls church y’all don’t do nothing, we take time. That’s what happens. Get over it.

Friend: Maybe your people are going to heaven and the rest of us aren’t

Me: Yea maybe

Me: You should convert that way you can just come to church with me and not be pissed off when I can’t do “brunch”. You are so white by the way…”brunch”

Friend: Hell no…if I was like you that would mean no more Sunday Funday

And as I start to think about how much I hate it when my white friends use the phrase “Sunday Funday”, I feel one of the little church kids wipe something gooey on me. “Please don’t let it be what I think it is, please don’t let it be what I think it is” and oh but it is! A big fat juicy booger! I stare at the booger and stare at the kid….booger…kid…booger…kid….kid is now laughing. "Why child? Why?!" I want to barf. I look back at the kid and she is now digging for more gold...I don't even bother telling her to stop, I just turn her around, point her in the direction opposite of me, and give her a shove out the aisle. 

“Mom,” I whisper loudly, “Mommmmmmm, I need a freakin tissue, pint size diva over there just wiped booger all over my arm!” My mom hands me the tissue, stares at the booger, makes the nastiest face ever, and comments on how large the booger is. I tell her how annoying her and the kid are as I wipe the big booger off my arm, exhale a sigh of disgust, and stare at the Jumbo Jesus behind the altar. “Yeaaaa,” I think to myself, “I bet Jesus thinks this its real funny how miserable I am. With booger on my arm. In church. Dying from the cold. Really having to use the bathroom. Getting interrogated on when my wedding date is. Even though I’m single. Yea, real cute Jesus, real cute.”

2 hours into liturgy, and I still have another hour or so to go. Oh geez. And I still have to survive Sunday School. Oh geeeeez!

And I think about my white friends, on their way to brunch. Jerks.

But by the time the day ends, and I’m back at home, and the whole ordeal of getting to church and back in one piece is done. I always realize just how much I love my religion, my church, and all the people in it. As crazy as it can be, I love each and every person and thing about what makes me Egyptian, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides…brunch isn’t all that great anyway.

But oh…I have to admit…I would love to have someone like this at our church…

Click Me!!!