Philip Hassey
The Days of the Militia Aren't Over Yet.
10/12/00
And while we were playing ping-pong, lo! A shaft of light fell down upon it.
"Douglas," I said with great sincerity, "The Donut Fairy has indeed blessed us."
"Yes," said Doug, as he reached towards the package of Recess we found.
That evening at debriefing time of our missions trip to Strong, Maine, Pastor
Mike asked us to list ten blessings. Doug immediately volunteered ours, "Today as me
and Hass were playing ping-pong, a very spiritual thing happened to us. We were talking
about the Donut Fairy and his blessing for good work. After an intense volley, me and
Hass looked and say a bright light streak downwards from the heavens and land on a
package of Recess Peanutbutter Cups. God blessed us by having the Donut Fairy leave
us those candies." Doug kept standing for another moment, as a spiritual aura built up
around him.
"What?" a cry came from across the room, "Those were my peanut butter cups."
Doug and I sat down immediately.
Shortly after the mission trip, our friend Giff suggested that we start a Militia,
"We could make our own outfits, and be this Militia!" Doug and I thought it was pretty
cool. We also suggested that, "We could wear around Machetes, and play ping-pong,
drink orange juice, and be blessed by the Donut Fairy," as we carried out our various
schemes. We also decided that a triumvarite wasn't what we wanted to be, we'd be a
trinity. That way, all we did would be spiritually justified, as we'd be dealing out God's
will, not just the Militias own agenda.
At church we tried to follow God's will too. Having invented a good deal of
spiritual folk lore, we assumed that everything word pastor Germaine said was thus
deamed holy, just because he said it. One Sunday he mentioned breakfast.
"Breakfast is very spiritual," said Douglas to me. Sitting in the back of the
sanctuary we were able to leave rather quickly in order to fulfill our spiritual
requirements. We were going to eat a breakfast.
It sort of became a habit. We'd come to church, and sing the songs at the
beginning, then we'd sneak out the back so that we could fulfill our destiny. At
Hopkinton Drug, we'd buy some cheese curls and head back to the church and lurk in a
dark room and eat them while planning out further spiritual escapades.
"Mr. VanTol is our true spiritual leader," I said to Doug. Douglas agreed, he was
our English teacher and school and thus had great spiritual influence in our lives.
"We aught to make a sacrifice to him," said Doug, "a burnt offering."
We solemly considered this possibility for a few moments.
"His house," I said, "We could burn down Mr. VanTol's house!"
Agreement was reached and great celebration ensued with cheese curls messing
up the room we were in, in a disgusting display of gluttony. The next day we wrote up
our proposed burning of his house, in order to present the idea to Mr. VanTol.
"Hello Douglas and Philip," said Mr. VanTol.
"Good morning, Mr. VanTol," we replied as we handed him our proposal. He
read it.
Then he looked up at us, "You are very sick boys, you two." We giggled, we
knew. See even more than during the church service, which only happened once a week,
we played ping-pong which happened many times a week. Around that table many
things were discussed.
We established a categorizing system for things we talked about. Things were
either mildly sacralidgeous, across the line of good taste. Sometimes we really topped
ourselves in our discussions, and we'd be across the line of good taste or sacralidge "and
into the amusement park on the other side riding all the rides!"
This further added to our spiritual folk lore. So after the breakfasts we imagined
that Pastor Germain was encouraging us to eat, we'd always sneak back into the sanctuary
for the final blessing. Thus we'd have all of our acts in between justified by the raising of
the hands of Pastor Germain, and a few words on his part to that effect. We'd stand up
straight , push our chests out and receive the blessing.
For all our spirituallity we definitely had the greatest spiritual highs on mission
trips and retreats. On the fall retreat we determined to go across the line of good taste
and ride all the rides.
With sick grins on our faces we sat down for a "meal."
Eventually someone walked up, "UHGH!! What are you doing?"
"Eating pure lard with sugar," said Doug.
"That's disgusting!"
"Eww," cried out someone else.
Really it was tapioca pudding we were scooping up with our hands then dipping
our hands into the pound bag of sugar. EIther way, across the line of good taste.
And then,a s we sat there, the Donut Fairy began to descend the stair case
carrying with him a box of twelve choclated covered donutes (Mr VanTOl's Ffavorite
kind.) He presented them to us with a sweet smile.
That's when we beat up Blazyk for wearing a dress.
