Vatican Rag

I think this is funnier if you have actually spent some time in the Catholic church. Which, you may remember, I did. I went to a Catholic girls' boarding school after my father died, and then when Mama remarried and we moved to Puerto Rico, the Catholic school was the only one where classes were taught in English.

Except arithmetic and geography. Since that was the year we did multiplication tables, that gave me a brief hitch in my math. On paper it was no problem, Spanish numerals and English numerals look the same. But, if someone asked me a multiplication problem and I had to answer verbally, I had to translate the English number to Spanish, work the problem, then translate the answer to English. Slowed me down considerably. I don't recall there being any problem with geography because of it -- perhaps we did Puerto Rican geography that year, and I've not needed it in any of the other places I've ever lived.

And then, decades later, I was the resident secular humanist working for Catholic Community Service for 12 years. That worked out pretty well -- the courts would assign parents to take my parenting class and sometimes the person would object because she/he wasn't Catholic, and the judge would respond, "The instructor is an atheist. I doubt she will try to convert you."

Anyway, here it is Sunday, and here is a post that touches, however lightly, on religion.